THE    HOUSE    OF    PRIDE 

AND    OTHER    TALES    OF    HAWAII 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
DALLAS   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE    HOUSE    OF    PRIDE 


AND    OTHER   TALES   OF   HAWAII 


BY 
JACK  LONDON 

AUTHOR    OF    "THE    SEA    WOLF,"     "WHITE 
FANG,"    "SOUTH    SEA    TALES,"     ETC. 


gorft 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 
1912 

All  riches  » azr  ved 


COPYRIGHT,  1909,  BY  THS  PHILLIPS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY,  BY  THE 

PACIFIC  MONTHLY  PUBLISHING  COMPANY,  BY  THE  Ess  Ess 

PUBLISHING  COMPANY,  AND  BY  THE  RED  BOOK 

CORPORATION. 

COPYRIGHT,  1910,  BY  THE  PACIFIC  MONTHLY  PUBLISHING 
COMPANY,  AND  BY  THE  LEWIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 

COPYRIGHT,  1912, 
BY  THE  MACM1LLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotypcd.     Published  March,  1912.     Reprinted 
March,  April,  1912. 


Norwood  Press 

J.  S.  Cusbing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwt'06,  Mass.,   U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


GOOD-BY,  JACK 
ALOHA  OE    . 


262710 


OF  PRIDE     .          . 

PACK 
I 

LEPER 

.       45 

iCK         . 

93 

•          •          •          • 

.     125 

HUN      . 

.     149 

f    OF    KONA    . 

.      191 

THE   HOUSE   OF   PRIDE 


THE   HOUSE   OF   PRIDE 

PERCIVAL  FORD  wondered  why 
he  had  come.  He  did  not  dance. 
He  did  not  care  much  for  army 
people.  Yet  he  knew  them  all  —  glid 
ing  and  revolving  there  on  the  broad 
lanai  of  the  Seaside,  the  officers  in  their 
fresh-starched  uniforms  of  white,  the 
civilians  in  white  and  black,  and  the 
women  bare  of  shoulders  and  arms. 
After  two  years  in  Honolulu  the  Twen 
tieth  was  departing  to  its  new  station 
in  Alaska,  and  Percival  Ford,  as  one 
of  the  big  men  of  the  Islands,  could 
not  help  knowing  the  officers  and  their 
women. 

But  between  knowing  and  liking  was 
a  vast  gulf.     The   army  women  fright- 

3 


4        THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

ened  him  just  a  little.  They  were  in 
ways  quite  different  from  the  women  he 
liked  best  —  the  elderly  women,  the  spin 
sters  and  the  bespectacled  maidens,  and 
the  very  serious  women  of  all  ages  whom 
he  met  on  church  and  library  and  kinder 
garten  committees,  who  came  meekly 
to  him  for  contributions  and  advice. 
He  ruled  those  women  by  virtue  of  his 
superior  mentality,  his  great  wealth, 
and  the  high  place  he  occupied  in  the 
commercial  baronage  of  Hawaii.  And 
he  was  not  afraid  of  them  in  the  least. 
Sex,  with  them,  was  not  obtrusive.  Yes, 
that  was  it.  There  was  in  them  some 
thing  else,  or  more,  than  the  assertive 
grossness  of  life.  He  was  fastidious ; 
he  acknowledged  that  to  himself;  and 
these  army  women,  with  their  bare 
shoulders  and  naked  arms,  their  straight- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE         5 

looking  eyes,  their  vitality  and  challeng 
ing  femaleness,  jarred  upon  his  sensi 
bilities. 

Nor  did  he  get  on  better  with  the  army 
men,  who  took  life  lightly,  drinking  and 
smoking  and  swearing  their  way  through 
life  and  asserting  the  essential  grossness 
of  flesh  no  less  shamelessly  than  their 
women.  He  was  always  uncomfortable 
in  the  company  of  the  army  men.  They 
seemed  uncomfortable,  too.  And  he  felt, 
always,  that  they  were  laughing  at  him 
up  their  sleeves,  or  pitying  him,  or  toler 
ating  him.  Then,  too,  they  seemed, 
by  mere  contiguity,  to  emphasize  a  lack 
in  him,  to  call  attention  to  that  in  them 
which  he  did  not  possess  and  which  he 
thanked  God  he  did  not  possess.  Faugh  ! 
They  were  like  their  women  ! 

In  fact,  Percival  Ford  was  no  more  a 


6        THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

woman's  man  than  he  was  a  man's  man. 
A  glance  at  him  told  the  reason.  He  had 
a  good  constitution,  never  was  on  inti 
mate  terms  with  sickness,  nor  even  mild 
disorders ;  but  he  lacked  vitality.  His 
was  a  negative  organism.  No  blood 
with  a  ferment  in  it  could  have  nourished 
and  shaped  that  long  and  narrow  face, 
those  thin  lips,  lean  cheeks,  and  the  small, 
sharp  eyes.  The  thatch  of  hair,  dust- 
colored,  straight  and  sparse,  advertised 
the  niggard  soil,  as  did  the  nose,  thin, 
delicately  modeled,  and  just  hinting  the 
suggestion  of  a  beak.  His  meagre  blood 
had  denied  him  much  of  life,  and  per 
mitted  him  to  be  an  extremist  in  one 
thing  only,  which  thing  was  righteous 
ness.  Over  right  conduct  he  pondered 
and  agonized,  and  that  he  should  do  right 
was  as  necessary  to  his  nature  as  loving 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE         7 

and  being  loved  were  necessary  to  com 
moner  clay. 

He  was  sitting  under  the  algaroba  trees 
between  the  lanai  and  the  beach.  His 
eyes  wandered  over  the  dancers  and  he 
turned  his  head  away  and  gazed  seaward 
across  the  mellow-sounding  surf  to  the 
Southern  Cross  burning  low  on  the  hori 
zon.  He  was  irritated  by  the  bare 
shoulders  and  arms  of  the  women.  If 
he  had  a  daughter  he  would  never  per 
mit  it,  never.  But  his  hypothesis  was 
the  sheerest  abstraction.  The  thought 
process  had  been  accompanied  by  no 
inner  vision  of  that  daughter.  He  did 
not  see  a  daughter  with  arms  and  shoul 
ders.  Instead,  he  smiled  at  the  remote 
contingency  of  marriage.  He  was  thirty- 
five,  and,  having  had  no  personal,  ex 
perience  of  love,  he  looked  upon  it,  not 


8         THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

as  mythical,  but  as  bestial.  Anybody 
could  marry.  The  Japanese  and  Chinese 
coolies,  toiling  on  the  sugar  plantations 
and  in  the  rice-fields,  married.  They 
invariably  married  at  the  first  oppor 
tunity.  It  was  because  they  were  so 
low  in  the  scale  of  life.  There  was 
nothing  else  for  them  to  do.  They  were 
like  the  army  men  and  women.  But  for 
him  there  were  other  and  higher  things. 
He  was  different  from  them  —  from  all 
of  them.  He  was  proud  of  how  he  hap 
pened  to  be.  He  had  come  of  no  petty 
love-match.  He  had  come  of  lofty  con 
ception  of  duty  and  of  devotion  to  a 
cause.  His  father  had  not  married  for 
love.  Love  was  a  madness  that  had 
never  perturbed  Isaac.  Ford.  When  he 
answered  the  call  to  go  to  the  heathen 
with  the  message  of  life,  he  had  had  no 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE        9 

thought  and  no  desire  for  marriage.  In 
this  they  were  alike,  his  father  and  he. 
But  the  Board  of  Missions  was  economi 
cal.  With  New  England  thrift  it  weighed 
and  measured  and  decided  that  married 
missionaries  were  less  expensive  per  capita 
and  more  efficacious.  So  the  Board  com 
manded  Isaac  Ford  to  marry.  Fur 
thermore,  it  furnished  him  with  a  wife, 
another  zealous  soul  with  no  thought  of 
marriage,  intent  only  on  doing  the  Lord's 
work  among  the  heathen.  They  saw 
each  other  for  the  first  time  in  Boston. 
The  Board  brought  them  together,  ar 
ranged  everything,  and  by  the  end  of  the 
week  they  were  married  and  started  on 
the  long  voyage  around  the  Horn. 

Percival  Ford  was  proud  that  he  had 
come  of  such  a  union.  He  had  been 
born  high,  and  he  thought  of  himself  as 


io       THE  HOUSE   OF  PRIDE 

a  spiritual  aristocrat.  And  he  was  proud 
of  his  father.  It  was  a  passion  with 
him.  The  erect,  austere  figure  of  Isaac 
Ford  had  burned  itself  upon  his  pride. 
On  his  desk  was  a  miniature  of  that  sol 
dier  of  the  Lord.  In  his  bedroom  hung 
the  portrait  of  Isaac  Ford,  painted  at 
the  time  when  he  had  served  under  the 
Monarchy  as  prime  minister.  Not  that 
Isaac  Ford  had  coveted  place  and  worldly 
wealth,  but  that,  as  prime  minister,  and, 
later,  as  banker,  he  had  been  of  greater 
service  to  the  missionary  cause.  The 
German  crowd,  and  the  English  crowd, 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  trading  crowd,  had 
sneered  at  Isaac  Ford  as  a  commercial 
soul-saver ;  but  he,  his  son,  knew  dif 
ferent.  When  the  natives,  emerging 

% 

abruptly  from  their  feudal  system,  with 
no  conception  of  the  nature  and  signifi-* 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       n 

cance  of  property  in  land,  were  letting 
their  broad  acres  slip  through  their 
ringers,  it  was  Isaac  Ford  who  had 
stepped  in  between  the  trading  crowd 
and  its  prey  and  taken  possession  of 
fat,  vast  holdings.  Small  wonder  the 
trading  crowd  did  not  like  his  memory. 
But  he  had  never  looked  upon  his  enor 
mous  wealth  as  his  own.  He  had  con 
sidered  himself  God's  steward.  Out  of 
the  revenues  he  had  built  schools,  and 
hospitals,  and  churches.  Nor  was  it  his 
fault  that  sugar,  after  the  slump,  had 
paid  forty  per  cent;  that  the  bank  he 
founded  had  prospered  into  a  railroad ; 
and  that,  among  other  things,  fifty  thou 
sand  acres  of  Oahu  pasture  land,  which 
he  had  bought  for  a  dollar  an  acre,  grew 
eight  tons  of  sugar  to  the  acre  every 
eighteen  months.  No,  in  all  truth  Isaac 


12       THE  HOUSE   OF   PRIDE 

Ford  was  an  heroic  figure,  fit,  so  Percival 
Ford  thought  privately,  to  stand  beside  the 
statue  of  Kamehameha  I  in  front  of  the 
Judiciary  Building.  Isaac  Ford  was  gone, 
but  he,  his  son,  carried  on  the  good  work 
at  least  as  inflexibly  if  not  as  masterfully. 

He  turned  his  eyes  back  to  the  lanai. 
What  was  the  difference,  he  asked  him 
self,  between  the  shameless,  grass-girdled 
hula  dances  and  the  decollete  dances  of 
the  women  of  his  own  race  ?  Was  there 
an  essential  difference  ?  or  was  it  a 
matter  of  degree  ? 

As  he  pondered  the  problem  a  hand 
rested  on  his  shoulder. 

"Hello,  Ford,  what  are  you  doing  here  ? 
Isn't  this  a  bit  festive  ?"  ^ 

"I  try  to  be  lenient,  Dr.  Kennedy, 
even  as  I  look  on,"  Percival  Ford  an 
swered  gravely.  "Won't  you  sit  down  ?" 


THE  HOUSE   OF  PRIDE      13 

Dr.  Kennedy  sat  down,  clapping  his 
palms  sharply.  A  white-clad  Japanese 
servant  answered  swiftly. 

Scotch  and  soda  was  Kennedy's  order; 
then,  turning  to  the  other,  he  said:  — 

"Of  course,  I  don't  ask  you." 

"But  I  will  take  something,"  Ford  said 
firmly.  The  doctor's  eyes  showed  sur 
prise,  and  the  servant  waited.  "Boy, 
a  lemonade,  please." 

The  doctor  laughed  at  it  heartily,  as 
a  joke  on  himself,  and  glanced  at  the 
musicians  under  the  hau  tree. 

"Why,  it's  the  Aloha  Orchestra,"  he 
said.  "I  thought  they  were  with  the 
Hawaiian  Hotel  on  Tuesday  nights. 
Some  rumpus,  I  guess." 

His  eyes  paused  for  a  moment  and 
dwelt  upon  the  one  who  was  playing  a 
guitar  and  singing  a  Hawaiian  song  to 


14      THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

the  accompaniment  of  all  the  instru 
ments.  His  face  became  grave  as  he 
looked  at  the  singer,  and  it  was  still 
grave  as  he  turned  it  to  his  companion. 

"Look  here,  Ford,  isn't  it  time  you  let 
up  on  Joe  Garland  ?  I  understand  you 
are  in  opposition  to  the  Promotion  Com 
mittee's  sending  him  to  the  States  on 
this  surf-board  proposition,  and  I've 
been  wanting  to  speak  to  you  about  it. 
I  should  have  thought  you'd  be  glad  to 
get  him  out  of  the  country.  It  would  be 
a  good  way  to  end  your  persecution  of 
him." 

"  Persecution  ?"  Percival  Ford's  eye 
brows  lifted  interrogatively. 

"Call  it  by  any  name  you  please," 
Kennedy  went  on.  "You've  hounded 
that  poor  devil  for  years.  It's  not  his 
fault.  Even  you  will  admit  that." 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       15 

"Not  his  fault?"  Percival  Ford's 
thin  lips  drew  tightly  together  for  the 
moment.  "Joe  Garland  is  dissolute  and 
idle.  He  has  always  been  a  wastrel,  a 
profligate." 

"But  that's  no  reason  you  should  keep 
on  after  him  the  way  you  do.  I've 
watched  you  from  the  beginning.  The 
first  thing  you  did  when  you  returned 
from  college  and  found  him  working  on 
the  plantation  as  outside  luna  was  to  fire 
him  —  you  with  your  millions,  and  he 
with  his  sixty  dollars  a  month." 

"Not  the  first  thing,"  Percival  Ford 
said  judicially,  in  the  tone  he  was  accus 
tomed  to  use  in  committee  meetings. 
"I  gave  him  his  warning.  The  superin 
tendent  said  he  was  a  capable  luna.  I 
had  no  objection  to  him  on  that  ground. 
It  was  what  he  did  outside  working 


16       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

hours.  He  undid  my  work  faster  than 
I  could  build  it  up.  Of  what  use  were 
the  Sunday  schools,  the  night  schools, 
and  the  sewing  classes,  when  in  the  even 
ings  there  was  Joe  Garland  with  his  in 
fernal  and  eternal  tum-tumming  of  guitar 
and  ukulele,  his  strong  drink,  and  his 
hula  dancing  ?  After  I  warned  him,  I 
came  upon  him  —  I  shall  never  forget  it 
—  came  upon  him,  down  at  the  cabins. 
It  was  evening.  I  could  hear  the  hula 
songs  before  I  saw  the  scene.  And  when 
I  did  see  it,  there  were  the  girls,  shame 
less  in  the  moonlight  and  dancing  — 
the  girls  upon  whom  I  had  worked  to 
teach  clean  living  and  right  conduct. 
And  there  were  three  girls  there,  I  re 
member,  just  graduated  from  the  mission 
school.  Of  course  I  discharged  Joe  Gar 
land.  I  know  it  was  the  same  at  Hilo. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       17 

People  said  I  went  out  of  my  way  when 
I  persuaded  Mason  and  Fitch  to  dis 
charge  him.  But  it  was  the  missionaries 
who  requested  me  to  do  so.  He  was 
undoing  their  work  by  his  reprehensible 
example." 

"Afterwards,  when  he  got  on  the  rail 
road,  your  railroad,  he  was  discharged 
without  cause,"  Kennedy  challenged. 

"Not  so,"  was  the  quick  answer.  "I 
had  him  into  my  private  office  and  talked 
with  him  for  half  an  hour." 

"You  discharged  him  for  inefficiency  ?" 
"For  immoral  living,  if  you  please." 
Dr.    Kennedy    laughed    with    a    grat 
ing  sound.     "Who  the  devil  gave  it  to 
you  to  be  judge  and  jury  ?     Does  land 
lordism  give  you  contr6l  of  the  immortal 
souls  of  those  that  toil  for  you  ?     I  have 
been  your  physician.     Am   I   to  expect 


1 8       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

tomorrow  your  ukase  that  I  give  up 
Scotch  and  soda  or  your  patronage  ? 
Bah  !  Ford,  you  take  life  too  seriously. 
Besides,  when  Joe  got  into  that  smug 
gling  scrape  (he  wasn't  in  your  employ, 
either),  and  he  sent  word  to  you,  asked 
you  to  pay  his  fine,  you  left  him  to  do 
his  six  months  hard  labor  on  the  reef. 
Don't  forget,  you  left  Joe  Garland  in  the 
lurch  that  time.  You  threw  him  down, 
hard ;  and  yet  I  remember  the  first  day 
you  came  to  school  —  we  boarded,  you 
were  only  a  day  scholar  —  you  had  to  be 
initiated.  Three  times  under  in  the 
swimming  tank  —  you  remember,  it  was 
the  regular  dose  every  new  boy  got. 
And  you  held  back.  You  denied  that 
you  could  swim.  You  were  frightened, 
hysterical  — " 

"Yes,    I    know,"    Percival    Ford   said 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       19 

slowly.  "I  was  frightened.  And  it  was 
a  lie,  for  I  could  swim.  .  .  .  And  I 
was  frightened." 

"And  you  remember  who  fought  for 
you  ?  who  lied  for  you  harder  than  you 
could  lie  and  swore  he  knew  you  couldn't 
swim  ?  Who  jumped  into  the  tank  and 
pulled  you  out  after  the  first  under  and 
was  nearly  drowned  for  it  by  the  other 
boys,  who  had  discovered  by  that  time 
that  you  could  swim  ?" 

"Of  course  I  know,"  the  other  rejoined 
coldly.  "But  a  generous  act  as  a  boy 
does  not  excuse  a  lifetime  of  wrong 
living." 

"He  has  never  done  wrong  to  you  ?  — 
personally  and  directly,  I  mean  ? " 

"No,"  was  Percival  Ford's  answer. 
"That  is  what  makes  my  position  im 
pregnable.  I  have  no  personal  spite 


20      THE  HOUSE  OF  >  PRIDE 

against  him.  He  is  bad,  that  is  all. 
His  life  is  bad—" 

"  Which  is  another  way  of  saying  that 
he  does  not  agree  with  you  in  the  way 
life  should  be  lived,"  the  doctor  inter 
rupted. 

"Have  it  that  way.  It  is  immaterial. 
He  is  an  idler — " 

"With  reason,"  was  the  interruption, 
"considering  the  jobs  out  of  which  you 
have  knocked  him." 

"He  is  immoral  — " 

"Oh,  hold  on  now,  Ford.  Don't  go 
harping  on  that.  You  are  pure  New 
England  stock.  Joe  Garland  is  half 
Kanaka.  Your  blood  is  thin.  His  is 
warm.  Life  is  one  thing  to  you,  another 
thing  to  him.  He  laughs  and  sings  and 
dances  through  life,  genial,  unselfish, 
childlike,  everybody's  friend.  You  go 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       21 

through  life  like  a  perambulating  prayer- 
wheel,  a  friend  of  nobody  but  the  right 
eous,  and  the  righteous  are  those  who  agree 
with  you  as  to  what  is  right.  And  after 
all,  who  shall  say  ?  You  live  like  an  an 
chorite.  Joe  Garland  lives  like  a  good 
fellow.  Who  has  extracted  the  most  from 
life  ?  We  are  paid  to  live,  you  know. 
When  the  wages  are  too  meagre  we  throw 
up  the  job,  which  is  the  cause,  believe  me, 
of  all  rational  suicide.  Joe  Garland  would 
starve  to  death  on  the  wages  you  get  from 
life.  You  see,  he  is  made  differently. 
So  would  you  starve  on  his  wages,  which 
are  singing,  and  love — " 

"Lust,  if  you  will  pardon  me,"  was 
the  interruption. 

Dr.  Kennedy  smiled. 

"Love,  to  you,  is  a  word  of  four  letters 
and  a  definition  which  you  have  ex- 


22       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

tracted  from  the  dictionary.  But  love, 
real  love,  dewy  and  palpitant  and  ten 
der,  you  do  not  know.  If  God  made  you 
and  me,  and  men  and  women,  believe 
me  he  made  love,  too.  But  to  come  back. 
It's  about  time  you  quit  hounding  Joe 
Garland.  It  is  not  worthy  of  you,  and 
it  is  cowardly.  The  thing  for  you  to  do 
is  to  reach  out  and  lend  him  a  hand." 

"Why  I,  any  more  than  you?"  the 
other  demanded.  "Why  don't  you  reach 
him  a  hand  ?" 

"I  have.  I'm  reaching  him  a  hand 
now.  I'm  trying  to  get  you  not  to  down 
the  Promotion  Committee's  proposition 
of  sending  him  away.  I  got  him  the  job 
at  Hilo  with  Mason  and  Fitch.  I've 
got  him  half  a  dozen  jobs,  out  of  every 
one  of  which  you  drove  him.  But  never 
mind  that.  Don't  forget  one  thing  — 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       23 

and  a  little  frankness  won't  hurt  you  — 
it  is  not  fair  play  to  saddle  another's 
fault  on  Joe  Garland;  and  you  know 
that  you,  least  of  all,  are  the  man  to  do 
it.  Why,  man,  it's  not  good  taste. 
It's  positively  indecent." 

"Now  I  don't  follow  you,"  Percival 
Ford  answered.  "You're  up  in  the  air 
with  some  obscure  scientific  theory  of 
heredity  and  personal  irresponsibility. 
But  how  any  theory  can  hold  Joe  Gar 
land  irresponsible  for  his  wrongdoings 
and  at  the  same  time  hold  me  personally 
responsible  for  them  —  more  responsible 
than  any  one  else,  including  Joe  Garland 
—  is  beyond  me." 

"It's  a  matter  of  delicacy,  I  suppose, 
or  of  taste,  that  prevents  you  from  fol 
lowing  me,"  Dr.  Kennedy  snapped  out. 
"It's  all  very  well,  for  the  sake  of  society, 


24       THE  HOUSE   OF  PRIDE 

tacitly  to  ignore  some  things,  but  you  do 
more  than  tacitly  ignore." 

"What  is  it,  pray,  that  I  tacitly 
ignore  !" 

Dr.  Kennedy  was  angry.  A  deeper 
red  than  that  of  constitutional  Scotch  and 
soda  suffused  his  face,  as  he  answered : 

"Your  father's  son." 

"Now  just  what  do  you  mean  ?" 

"Damn  it,  man,  you  can't  ask  me  to 
be  plainer  spoken  than  that.  But  if 
you  will,  all  right  —  Isaac's  Ford's  son  — 
Joe  Garland  —  your  brother." 

Percival  Ford  sat  quietly,  an  annoyed 
and  shocked  expression  on  his  face. 
Kennedy  looked  at  him  curiously,  then, 
as  the  slow  minutes  dragged  by,  became 
embarrassed  and  frightened. 

"My  God  !"  he  cried  finally,  "you  don't 
mean  to  tell  me  that  you  didn't  know  !" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       25 

As  in  answer,  Percival  Ford's  cheeks 
turned  slowly  gray. 

"It's  a  ghastly  joke,"  he  said;  "a 
ghastly  joke." 

The  doctor  had  got  himself  in  hand. 

"Everybody  knows  it,"  he  said.  "I 
thought  you  knew  it.  And  since  you 
don't  know  it,  it's  time  you  did,  and  I'm 
glad  of  the  chance  of  setting  you  straight. 
Joe  Garland  and  you  are  brothers  — 
half-brothers." 

"It's  a  lie,"  Ford  cried.  "You  don't 
mean  it.  Joe  Garland's  mother  was 
Eliza  Kunilio."  (Dr.  Kennedy  nodded.) 
"I  remember  her  well,  with  her  duck 
pond  and  taro  patch.  His  father  was 
Joseph  Garland,  the  beach-comber." 
(Dr.  Kennedy  shook  his  head.)  "He 
died  only  two  or  three  years  ago.  He 
used  to  get  drunk.  There's  where  Joe 


26       THE  HOUSE   OF   PRIDE 

got  his  dissoluteness.  There's  the  hered 
ity  for  you." 

"And  nobody  told  you,"  Kennedy 
said  wonderingly,  after  a  pause. 

"Dr.  Kennedy,  you  have  said  some 
thing  terrible,  which  I  cannot  allow  to 
pass.  You  must  either  prove  or,  or  .  .  ." 

"Prove  it  yourself.  Turn  around  and 
look  at  him.  You've  got  him  in  profile. 
Look  at  his  nose.  That's  Isaac  Ford's. 
Yours  is  a  thin  edition  of  it.  That's 
right.  Look.  The  lines  are  fuller,  but 
they  are  all  there." 

Percival  Ford  looked  at  the  Kanaka 
half-breed  who  played  under  the  hau 
tree,  and  it  seemed,  as  by  some  illumina 
tion,  that  he  was  gazing  on  a  wraith  of 
himself.  Feature  after  feature  flashed 
up  an  unmistakable  resemblance.  Or, 
rather,  it  was  he  who  was  the  wraith  of 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       27 

that  other  full-muscled  and  generously 
moulded  man.  And  his  features,  and 
that  other  man's  features,  were  all  remi 
niscent  of  Isaac  Ford.  And  nobody  had 
told  him.  Every  line  of  Isaac  Ford's 
face  he  knew.  Miniatures,  portraits,  and 
photographs  of  his  father  were  passing 
in  review  through  his  mind,  and  here 
and  there,  over  and  again,  in  the  face 
before  him,  he  caught  resemblances  and 
vague  hints  of  likeness.  It  was  devil's 
work  that  could  reproduce  the  austere 
features  of  Isaac  Ford  in  the  loose  and 
sensuous  features  before  him.  Once,  the 
man  turned,  and  for  one  flashing  instant 
it  seemed  to  Percival  Ford  that  he  saw 
his  father,  dead  and  gone,  peering  at  him 
out  of  the  face  of  Joe  Garland. 

"It's  nothing  at  all,"  he  could  faintly 
hear  Dr.  Kennedy  saying.     "They  were 


28       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

all  mixed  up  in  the  old  days.  You  know 
that.  You've  seen  it  all  your  life. 
Sailors  married  queens  and  begat  prin 
cesses  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  It  was  the 
usual  thing  in  the  Islands." 

"But  not  with  my  father,"  Percival 
Ford  interrupted. 

"There  you  are."  Kennedy  shrugged 
his  shoulders.  "Cosmic  sap  and  smoke 
of  life.  Old  Isaac  Ford  was  straight- 
laced  and  all  the  rest,  and  I  know  there's 
no  explaining  it,  least  of  all  to  himself. 
He  understood  it  no  more  than  you  do. 
Smoke  of  life,  that's  all.  And  don't 
forget  one  thing,  Ford.  There  was  a 
dab  of  unruly  blood  in  old  Isaac  Ford, 
and  Joe  Garland  inherited  it  —  all  of  it, 
smoke  of  life  and  cosmic  sap ;  while  you 
inherited  all  of  old  Isaac's  ascetic  blood. 
And  just  because  your  blood  is  cold, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       29 

well-ordered,  and  well-disciplined,  is  no 
reason  that  you  should  frown  upon  Joe 
Garland.  When  Joe  Garland  undoes  the 
work  you  do,  remember  that  it  is  only 
old  Isaac  Ford  on  both  sides,  undoing 
with  one  hand  what  he  does  with  the 
other.  You  are  Isaac  Ford's  right  hand, 
let  us  say ;  Joe  Garland  is  his  left  hand." 

Percival  Ford  made  no  answer,  and  in 
the  silence  Dr.  Kennedy  finished  his 
forgotten  Scotch  and  soda.  From  across 
the  grounds  an  automobile  hooted  im 
peratively. 

"There's  the  machine,"  Dr.  Kennedy 
said,  rising.  "I've  got  to  run.  I'm 
sorry  I've  shaken  you  up,  and  at  the 
same  time  I'm  glad.  And  know  one 
thing,  Isaac  Ford's  dab  of  unruly  blood 
was  remarkably  small,  and  Joe  Garland 
got  it  all.  And  one  other  thing.  If 


30       THE   HOUSE   OF  PRIDE 

your  father's  left  hand  offend  you,  don't 
smite  it  off.  Besides,  Joe  is  all  right. 
Frankly,  if  I  could  choose  between  you 
and  him  to  live  with  me  on  a  desert  isle, 
I'd  choose  Joe." 

Little  bare-legged  children  ran  about 
him,  playing,  on  the  grass ;  but  Percival 
Ford  did  not  see  them.  He  was  gazing 
steadily  at  the  singer  under  the  hau  tree. 
He  even  changed  his  position  once,  to 
get  closer.  The  clerk  of  the  Seaside  went 
by,  limping  with  age  and  dragging  his 
reluctant  feet.  He  had  lived  forty  years 
on  the  Islands.  Percival  Ford  beckoned 
to  him,  and  the  clerk  came  respectfully, 
and  wondering  that  he  should  be  noticed 
by  Percival  Ford. 

"John,"  Ford  said,  "I  want  you  to 
give  me  some  information.  Won't  you 
sit  down  ?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       31 

The  clerk  sat  down  awkwardly,  stunned 
by  the  unexpected  honor.  He  blinked 
at  the  other  and  mumbled,  "Yes,  sir, 
thank  you." 

"John,  who  is  Joe  Garland  ?" 

The  clerk  stared  at  him,  blinked, 
cleared  his  throat,  and  said  nothing. 

"Go  on,"  Percival  Ford  commanded. 
"Who  is  he?" 

"You're  joking  me,  sir,"  the  other 
managed  to  articulate. 

"I  spoke  to  you  seriously." 

The  clerk  recoiled  from  him. 

:fYou  don't  mean  to  say  you  don't 
know?"  he  questioned,  his  question  in 
itself  the  answer. 

"I  want  to  know." 

"Why,  he's--"  John  broke  off  and 
looked  about  him  helplessly.  "Hadn't 
you  better  ask  somebody  else  ?  Every- 


32       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

body  thought  you  knew.  We  always 
thought  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  go  ahead." 

"We  always  thought  that  that  was  why 
you  had  it  in  for  him." 

Photographs  and  miniatures  of  Isaac 
Ford  were  trooping  through  his  son's 
brain,  and  ghosts  of  Isaac  Ford  seemed 
in  the  air  about  him.  "I  wish  you 
good  night,  sir,"  he  could  hear  the  clerk 
saying,  and  he  saw  him  beginning  to 
limp  away. 

"John,"  he  called  abruptly. 

John  came  back  and  stood  near  him, 
blinking  and  nervously  moistening  his 
lips. 

'You  haven't  told  me  yet,  you  know." 

"Oh,  about  Joe  Garland?" 

"Yes,  about  Joe  Garland.  Who  is 
he?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       33 

"He's  your  brother,  sir,  if  I  say  it  who 
shouldn't." 

"Thank  you,  John.     Good  night." 

"And  you  didn't  know  ?"  the  old  man 
queried,  content  to  linger,  now  that  the 
crucial  point  was  past. 

"Thank  you,  John.  Good  night,"  was 
the  response. 

"Yes,  sir,  thank  you,  sir.  I  think  it's 
going  to  rain.  Good  night,  sir." 

Out  of  a  clear  sky,  filled  only  with  stars 
and  moonlight,  fell  a  rain  so  fine  and 
attenuated  as  to  resemble  a  vapor  spray. 
Nobody  minded  it;  the  children  played 
on,  running  bare-legged  over  the  grass 
and  leaping  into  the  sand ;  and  in  a 
few  minutes  it  was  gone.  In  the  south 
east,  Diamond  Head,  a  black  blot,  sharply 
defined,  silhouetted  its  crater-form  against 
the  stars.  At  sleepy  intervals  the  surf 


34       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

flung  its  foam  across  the  sand  to  the  grass, 
and  far  out  could  be  seen  the  black  specks 
of  swimmers  under  the  moon.  The  voices 
of  the  singers,  singing  a  waltz,  died  away ; 
and  in  the  silence,  from  somewhere  under 
the  trees,  arose  the  laugh  of  a  woman  that 
was  a  love-cry.  It  startled  Percival  Ford, 
and  it  reminded  him  of  Dr.  Kennedy's 
phrase.  Down  by  the  outrigger  canoes, 
where  they  lay  hauled  out  on  the  sand,  he 
saw  men  and  women,  Kanakas,  reclining 
languorously,  like  lotus-eaters,  the  women 
in  white  holokus ;  and  against  one  such 
holoku  he  saw  the  dark  head  of  the  steers 
man  of  the  canoe  resting  upon  the 
woman's  shoulder.  Farther  down,  where 
the  strip  of  sand  widened  at  the  entrance 
to  the  lagoon,  he  saw  a  man  and  woman 
walking  side  by  side.  As  they  drew  near 
the  light  lanai,  he  saw  the  woman's  hand 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       35 

go  down  to  her  waist  and  disengage  a 
girdling  arm.  And  as  they  passed  him, 
Percival  Ford  nodded  to  a  captain  he 
knew,  and  to  a  major's  daughter.  Smoke 
of  life,  that  was  it,  an  ample  phrase.  And 
again,  from  under  the  dark  algaroba  tree 
arose  the  laugh  of  a  woman  that  was  a 
love-cry ;  and  past  his  chair,  on  the  way  to 
bed,  a  bare-legged  youngster  was  led  by  a 
chiding  Japanese  nurse-maid.  The  voices 
of  the  singers  broke  softly  and  meltingly 
into  an  Hawaiian  love  song,  and  officers 
and  women,  with  encircling  arms,  were 
gliding  and  whirling  on  the  lanai;  and 
once  again  the  woman  laughed  under  the 
algaroba  trees. 

And  Percival  Ford  knew  only  dis 
approval  of  it  all.  He  was  irritated  by 
the  love-laugh  of  the  woman,  by  the 
steersman  with  pillowed  head  on  the 


36       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

white  holoku,  by  the  couples  that  walked 
on  the  beach,  by  the  officers  and  women 
that  danced,  and  by  the  voices  of  the 
singers  singing  of  love,  and  his  brother 
singing  there  with  them  under  the  hau 
tree.  The  woman  that  laughed  especially 
irritated  him.  A  curious  train  of  thought 
was  aroused.  He  was  Isaac  Ford's  son, 
and  what  had  happened  with  Isaac  Ford 
might  happen  with  him.  He  felt  in  his 
cheeks  the  faint  heat  of  a  blush  at  the 
thought,  and  experienced  a  poignant  sense 
of  shame.  He  was  appalled  by  what  was 
in  his  blood.  It  was  like  learning  sud 
denly  that  his  father  had  been  a  leper 
and  that  his  own  blood  might  bear  the 
taint  of  that  dread  disease.  Isaac  Ford, 
the  austere  soldier  of  the  Lord  —  the  old 
hypocrite  !  What  difference  between  him 
and  any  beach-comber  ?  The  house  of 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       37 

pride    that    Percival    Ford    had    builded 
was  tumbling  about  his  ears. 

The  hours  passed,  the  army  people 
laughed  and  danced,  the  native  orchestra 
played  on,  and  Percival  Ford  wrestled 
with  the  abrupt  and  overwhelming  prob 
lem  that  had  been  thrust  upon  him. 
He  prayed  quietly,  his  elbow  on  the 
table,  his  head  bowed  upon  his  hand, 
with  all  the  appearance  of  any  tired 
onlooker.  Between  the  dances  the  army 
men  and  women  and  the  civilians  fluttered 
up  to  him  and  buzzed  conventionally, 
and  when  they  went  back  to  the  lanai 
he  took  up  his  wrestling  where  he  had 
left  it  off. 

He  began  to  patch  together  his 
shattered  ideal  of  Isaac  Ford,  and  for 
cement  he  used  a  cunning  and  subtle 
logic.  It  was  of  the  sort  that  is  com- 


38       THE  HOUSE   OF   PRIDE 

pounded  in  the  brain  laboratories  of 
egotists,  and  it  worked.  It  was  incon 
trovertible  that  his  father  had  been  made 
of  finer  clay  than  those  about  him ;  but 
still,  old  Isaac  had  been  only  in  the 
process  of  becoming,  while  he,  Percival 
Ford,  had  become.  As  proof  of  it,  he  re 
habilitated  his  father  and  at  the  same 
time  exalted  himself.  His  lean  little  ego 
waxed  to  colossal  proportions.  He  was 
great  enough  to  forgive.  He  glowed  at 
the  thought  of  it.  Isaac  Ford  had  been 
great,  but  he  was  greater,  for  he  could 
forgive  Isaac  Ford  and  even  restore  him 
to  the  holy  place  in  his  memory,  though 
the  place  was  not  quite  so  holy  as  it  had 
been.  Also,  he  applauded  Isaac  Ford 
for  having  ignored  the  outcome  of  his  one 
step  aside.  Very  well,  he,  too,  would 
ignore  it. 


THE  HOUSE   OF   PRIDE       39 

The  dance  was  breaking  up.  The 
orchestra  had  finished  "Aloha  Oe"  and 
was  preparing  to  go  home.  Percival 
Ford  clapped  his  hands  for  the  Japanese 
servant. 

"You  tell  that  man  I  want  to  see  him," 
he  said,  pointing  out  Joe  Garland.  "Tell 
him  come  here,  now." 

Joe  Garland  approached  and  halted 
respectfully  several  paces  away,  nervously 
fingering  the  guitar  which  he  still  carried. 
The  other  did  not  ask  him  to  sit  down. 

"You  are  my  brother,"  he  said. 

"Why,  everybody  knows  that,"  was 
the  reply,  in  tones  of  wonderment. 

"Yes,  so  I  understand,"  Percival  Ford 
said  dryly.  "But  I  did  not  know  it  till 
this  evening." 

The  half-brother  waited  uncomfortably 
in  the  silence  that  followed,  during  which 


4o       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

Percival  Ford  coolly  considered  his  next 
utterance. 

.  "You  remember  that  first  time  I  came 
to  school  and  the  boys  ducked  me  ?"  he 
asked.  "Why  did  you  take  my  part." 

The  half-brother  smiled  bashfully. 

"Because  you  knew  ?" 

"Yes,  that  was  why." 

"But  I  didn't  know,"  Percival  Ford 
said  in  the  same  dry  fashion. 

"Yes,"  the  other  said. 

Another  silence  fell.  Servants  were 
beginning  to  put  out  the  lights  on  the 
lanai. 

"You  know.  .  .  now,"  the  half-brother 
said  simply. 

Percival  Ford  frowned.  Then  he 
looked  the  other  over  with  a  considering 
eye. 

"How  much  will  you  take  to  leave  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE       41 

Islands  and  never  come  back?"  he  de 
manded. 

"And  never  come  back?"  Joe  Gar 
land  faltered.  "It  is  the  only  land  I 
know.  Other  lands  are  cold.  I  do  not 
know  other  lands.  I  have  many  friends 
here.  In  other  lands  there  would  not  be 
one  voice  to  say,  ' Aloha ,  Joe,  my  boy." 
:  "I  said  never  to  come  back,"  Percival 
Ford  reiterated.  "The  Alameda  sails 
to-morrow  for  San  Francisco." 

Joe  Garland  was  bewildered. 

"But  why?"  he  asked.  "You  know 
now  that  we  are  brothers." 

"That  is  why,"  was  the  retort.  "As 
you  said  yourself,  everybody  knows.  I 
will  make  it  worth  your  while." 

All  awkwardness  and  embarrassment 
disappeared  from  Joe  Garland.  Birth 
and  station  were  bridged  and  reversed. 


42       THE  HOUSE  OF  PRIDE 

"You  want  me  to  go  ?"  he  demanded. 

"I  want  you  to  go  and  never  to  come 
back,"  Percival  Ford  answered. 

And  in  that  moment,  flashing  and  fleet 
ing,  it  was  given  him  to  see  his  brother 
tower  above  him  like  a  mountain,  and 
to  feel  himself  dwindle  and  dwarf  to  mi 
croscopic  insignificance.  But  it  is  not  well 
for  one  to  see  himself  truly,  nor  can  one 
so  see  himself  for  long  and  live  ;  and  only 
for  that  flashing  moment  did  Percival 
Ford  see  himself  and  his  brother  in  true 
perspective.  The  next  moment  he  was 
mastered  by  his  meagre  and  insatiable 
ego. 

"As  I  said,  I  will  make  it  worth  your 
while.  You  will  not  suffer.  .  I  will  pay 
you  well." 

"All  right,"  Joe  Garland  said.  "I'll 
go." 


THE   HOUSE   OF   PRIDE       43 

He  started  to  turn  away. 

"Joe,"  the  other  called.  "You  see  my 
lawyer  to-morrow  morning.  Five 
hundred  down  and  two  hundred  a  month 
as  long  as  you  stay  away." 

"You  are  very  kind,"  Joe  Garland 
answered  softly.  "You  are  too  kind. 
And  anyway,  I  guess  I  don't  want 
your  money.  I  go  to-morrow  on  the 
A I  ante  da. " 

He  walked  away,  but  did  not  say 
good-by. 

Percival  Ford  clapped  his  hands. 

"Boy,"  he  said  to  the  Japanese,  "a 
lemonade." 

And  over  the  lemonade  he  smiled  long 
and  contentedly  to  himself. 


II 

KOOLAU   THE   LEPER 


KOOLAU   THE    LEPER 

"TP\  ECAUSE  we  are  sick  they  take 
"j  away  our  liberty.  We  have 
obeyed  the  law.  We  have  done 
no  wrong.  And  yet  they  would  put 
us  in  prison.  Molokai  is  a  prison.  That 
you  know.  Niuli,  there,  his  sister  was 
sent  to  Molokai  seven  years  ago.  He 
has  not  seen  her  since.  Nor  will  he  ever 
see  her.  She  must  stay  there  until  she 
dies.  This  is  not  her  will.  It  is  not 
Niuli's  will.  It  is  the  will  of  the  white 
men  who  rule  the  land.  And  who  are 
these  white  men  ? 

"We  know.  We  have  it  from  our 
fathers  and  our  fathers'  fathers.  They 
came  like  lambs,  speaking  softly.  Well 
might  they  speak  softly,  for  we  were 

47 


48         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

many  and  strong,  and  all  the  islands 
were  ours.  As  I  say,  they  spoke  softly. 
They  were  of  two  kinds.  The  one  kind 
asked  our  permission,  our  gracious  per 
mission,  to  preach  to  us  the  word  of  God. 
The  other  kind  asked  our  permission, 
our  gracious  permission,  to  trade  with  us. 
That  was  the  beginning.  To-day  all  the 
islands  are  theirs,  all  the  land,  all  the 
cattle  —  everything  is  theirs.  They  that 
preached  the  word  of  God  and  they  that 
preached  the  word  of  Rum  have  fore 
gathered  and  become  great  chiefs.  They 
live  like  kings  in  houses  of  many  rooms, 
with  multitudes  of  servants  to  care  for 
them.  They  who  had  nothing  have 
everything,  and  if  you,  or  I,  or  any 
Kanaka  be  hungry,  they  sneer  and  say, 
'Well,  why  don't  you  work  ?  There  are 
the  plantations.'" 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         49 

Koolau  paused.  He  raised  one  hand, 
and  with  gnarled  and  twisted  fingers 
lifted  up  the  blazing  wreath  of  hibiscus 
that  crowned  his  black  hair.  The  moon 
light  bathed  the  scene  in  silver.  It  was 
a  night  of  peace,  though  those  who  sat 
about  him  and  listened  had  all  the  seem 
ing  of  battle-wrecks.  Their  faces  were 
leonine.  Here  a  space  yawned  in  a  face 
where  should  have  been  a  nose,  and  there 
an  arm-stump  showed  where  a  hand  had 
rotted  off.  They  were  men  and  women 
beyond  the  pale,  the  thirty  of  them,  for 
upon  them  had  been  placed  the  mark  of 
the  beast. 

They  sat,  flower-garlanded,  in  the  per 
fumed,  luminous  night,  and  their  lips 
made  uncouth  noises  and  their  throats 
rasped  approval  of  Koolau's  speech. 
They  were  creatures  who  once  had  been 


SO         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

men  and  women.  But  they  were  men 
and  women  no  longer.  They  were  mon 
sters  —  in  face  and  form  grotesque  cari 
catures  of  everything  human.  They 
were  hideously  maimed  and  distorted, 
and  had  the  seeming  of  creatures  that 
had  been  racked  in  millenniums  of  hell. 
Their  hands,  when  they  possessed  them, 
were  like  harpy-claws.  Their  faces  were 
the  misfits  and  slips,  crushed  and  bruised 
by  some  mad  god  at  play  in  the  machinery 
of  life.  Here  and  there  were  features 
which  the  mad  god  had  smeared  half 
away,  and  one  woman  wept  scalding 
tears  from  twin  pits  of  horror,  where  her 
eyes  once  had  been.  Some  were  in  pain 
and  groaned  from  their  chests.  Others 
coughed,  making  sounds  like  the  tearing 
of  tissue.  Two  were  idiots,  more  like 
huge  apes  marred  in  the  making,  until 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         51 

even  an  ape  were  an  angel.  They  mowed 
and  gibbered  in  the  moonlight,  under 
crowns  of  drooping,  golden  blossoms. 
One,  whose  bloated  ear-lobe  flapped  like  a 
fan  upon  his  shoulder,  caught  up  a 
gorgeous  flower  of  orange  and  scarlet 
and  with  it  decorated  the  monstrous  ear 
that  flip-flapped  with  his  every  move 
ment. 

And  over  these  things  Koolau  was 
king.  And  this  was  his  kingdom,  --  a 
flower-throttled  gorge,  with  beetling  cliffs 
and  crags,  from  which  floated  the  blattings 
of  wild  goats.  On  three  sides  the  grim 
walls  rose,  festooned  in  fantastic  draper 
ies  of  tropic  vegetation  and  pierced 
by  cave-entrances  —  the  rocky  lairs  of 
Koolau's  subjects.  On  the  fourth  side 
the  earth  fell  away  into  a  tremendous 
abyss,  and,  far  below,  could  be  seen 


52         KOOLAU  THE  LEPER 

the  summits  of  lesser  peaks  and  crags, 
at  whose  bases  foamed  and  rumbled  the 
Pacific  surge.  In  fine  weather  a  boat 
could  land  on  the  rocky  beach  that 
marked  the  entrance  of  Kalalau  Valley, 
but  the  weather  must  be  very  fine.  And 
a  cool-headed  mountaineer  might  climb 
from  the  beach  to  the  head  of  Kalalau 
Valley,  to  this  pocket  among  the  peaks 
where  Koolau  ruled ;  but  such  a  moun 
taineer  must  be  very  cool  of  head,  and 
he  must  know  the  wild-goat  trails  as  well. 
The  marvel  was  that  the  mass  of  human 
wreckage  that  constituted  Koolau's  peo 
ple  should  have  been  able  to  drag  its 
helpless  misery  over  the  giddy  goat-trails 
to  this  inaccessible  spot. 

"Brothers,"  Koolau  began. 

But  one  of  the  mowing,  apelike  traves 
ties  emitted  a  wild  shriek  of  madness, 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         53 

and  Koolau  waited  while  the  shrill  ca- 
chination  was  tossed  back  and  forth 
among  the  rocky  walls  and  echoed  dis 
tantly  through  the  pulseless  night. 

"Brothers,  is  it  not  strange?  Ours 
was  the  land,  and  behold,  the  land  is  not 
ours.  What  did  these  preachers  of  the 
word  of  God  and  the  word  of  Rum  give 
us  for  the  land  ?  Have  you  received  one 
dollar,  as  much  as  one  dollar,  any  one  of 
you,  for  the  land  ?  Yet  it  is  theirs,  and 
in  return  they  tell  us  we  can  go  to  work 
on  the  land,  their  land,  and  that  what  we 
produce  by  our  toil  shall  be  theirs.  Yet 
in  the  old  days  we  did  not  have  to  work. 
Also,  when  we  are  sick,  they  take  away 
our  freedom." 

"Who  brought  the  sickness,  Koolau  ?" 
demanded  Kiloliana,  a  lean  and  wiry  man 
with  a  face  so  like  a  laughing  faun's  that 


54         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

one  might  expect  to  see  the  cloven  hoofs 
under  him.  They  were  cloven,  it  was 
true,  but  the  cleavages  were  great  ulcers 
and  livid  putrefactions.  Yet  this  was 
Kiloliaha,  the  most  daring  climber  of 
them  all,  the  man  who  knew  every  goat- 
trail  and  who  had  led  Koolau  and  his 
wretched  followers  into  the  recesses  of 
Kalalau. 

"Ay,  well  questioned,5'  Koolau  an 
swered.  "Because  we  would  not  work 
the  miles  of  sugar-cane  where  once  our 
horses  pastured,  they  brought  the  Chinese 
slaves  from  over  seas.  And  with  them 
came  the  Chinese  sickness  —  that  which 
we  suffer  from  and  because  of  which  they 
would  imprison  us  on  Molokai.  We 
were  born  on  Kauai.  We  have  been  to 
the  other  islands,  some  here  and  some 
there,  to  Oahu,  to  Mauf,  to  Hawaii, 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         55 

to  Honolulu.  Yet  always  did  we  come 
back  to  Kauai.  Why  did  we  come  back  ? 
There  must  be  a  reason.  Because  we 
love  Kauai.  We  were  born  here.  Here 
we  have  lived.  And  here  shall  we  die  — 
unless  —  unless  —  there  be  weak  hearts 
amongst  us.  Such  we  do  not  want. 
They  are  fit  for  Molokai.  And  if  there 
be  such,  let  them  not  remain.  To-morrow 
the  soldiers  land  on  the  shore.  Let  the 
weak  hearts  go  down  to  them.  They  will 
be  sent  swiftly  to  Molokai.  As  for  us, 
we  shall  stay  and  fight.  But  know  that 
we  will  not  die.  We  have  rifles.  You 
know  the  narrow  trails  where  men  must 
creep,  one  by  one.  I,  alone,  Koolau,  who 
was  once  a  cowboy  on  Niihau,  can  hold 
the  trail  against  a  thousand  men.  Here 
is  Kapalei,  who  was  once  a  judge  over 
men  and  a  man  with  honor,  but  who  is 


56         KOOLAU  THE  LEPER 

now  a  hunted  rat,  like  you  and  me.  Hear 
him.  He  is  wise." 

Kapalei  arose.  Once  he  had  been  a 
judge.  He  had  gone  to  college  at  Puna- 
hou.  He  had  sat  at  meat  with  lords  and 
chiefs  and  the  high  representatives  of 
alien  powers  who  protected  the  interests 
of  traders  and  missionaries.  Such  had 
been  Kapalei.  But  now,  as  Koolau  had 
said,  he  was  a  hunted  rat,  a  creature  out 
side  the  law,  sunk  so  deep  in  the  mire  of 
human  horror  that  he  was  above  the 
law  as  well  as  beneath  it.  His  face  was 
featureless,  save  for  gaping  orifices  and 
for  the  lidless  eyes  that  burned  under 
hairless  brows. 

"Let  us  not  make  trouble,"  he  began. 
"We  ask  to  be  left  alone.  But  if  they 
do  not  leave  us  alone,  then  is  the  trouble 
theirs,  and  the  penalty.  My  fingers  are 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         57 

gone,  as  you  see."  He  held  up  his 
stumps  of  hands  that  all  might  see.  "Yet 
have  I  the  joint  of  one  thumb  left,  and 
it  can  pull  a  trigger  as  firmly  as  did  its 
lost  neighbor  in  the  old  days.  We  love 
Kauai.  Let  us  live  here,  or  die  here,  but 
do  not  let  us  go  to  the  prison  of  Molokai. 
The  sickness  is  not  ours.  We  have  not 
sinned.  The  men  who  preached  the  word 
of  God  and  the  word  of  Rum  brought 
the  sickness  with  the  coolie  slaves  who 
work  the  stolen  land.  I  have  been  a 
judge.  I  know  the  law  and  the  justice, 
and  I  say  to  you  it  is  unjust  to  steal  a 
man's  land,  to  make  that  man  sick  with 
the  Chinese  sickness,  and  then  to  put  that 
man  in  prison  for  life." 

"Life  is  short,  and  the  days  are  filled 
with  pain,"  said  Koolau.  "Let  us  drink 
and  dance  and  be  happy  as  we  can." 


58         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

From  one  of  the  rocky  lairs  calabashes 
were  produced  and  passed  around.  The 
calabashes  were  filled  with  the  fierce  dis 
tillation  of  the  root  of  the  ti-plant ;  and 
as  the  liquid  fire  coursed  through  them 
and  mounted  to  their  brains,  they  forgot 
that  they  had  once  been  men  and  women, 
for  they  were  men  and  women  once  more. 
The  woman  who  wept  scalding  tears 
from  open  eye-pits  was  indeed  a  woman 
apulse  with  life  as  she  plucked  the  strings 
of  an  ukulele  and  lifted  her  voice  in  a 
barbaric  love-call  such  as  might  have 
come  from  the  dark  forest-depths  of  the 
primeval  world.  The  air  tingled  with 
her  cry,  softly  imperious  and  seductive. 
Upon  a  mat,  timing  his  rhythm  to  the 
woman's  song,  Kiloliana  danced.  It  was 
unmistakable.  Love  danced  in  all  his 
movements,  and,  next,  dancing  with  him 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         59 

on  the  mat,  was  a  woman  whose  heavy 
hips  and  generous  breast  gave  the  lie  to  her 
disease-corroded  face.  It  was  a  dance  of 
the  living  dead,  for  in  their  disintegrating 
bodies  life  still  loved  and  longed.  Ever 
the  woman  whose  sightless  eyes  ran 
scalding  tears  chanted  her  love-cry,  ever 
the  dancers  danced  of  love  in  the  warm 
night,  and  ever  the  calabashes  went 
around  till  in  all  their  brains  were  maggots 
crawling  of  memory  and  desire.  And 
with  the  woman  on  the  mat  danced  a 
slender  maid  whose  face  was  beautiful  and 
unmarred,  but  whose  twisted  arms  that 
rose  and  fell  marked  the  disease's  ravage. 
And  the  two  idiots,  gibbering  and  mouth 
ing  strange  noises,  danced  apart,  gro 
tesque,  fantastic,  travestying  love  as  they 
themselves  had  been  travestied  by  life. 
But  the  woman's  love-cry  broke  mid- 


60         KOOLAU  THE  LEPER 

way,  the  calabashes  were  lowered,  and 
the  dancers  ceased,  as  all  gazed  into  the 
abyss  above  the  sea,  where  a  rocket 
flared  like  a  wan  phantom  through  the 
moonlit  air. 

"  It  is  the  soldiers,"  said  Koolau.  "To 
morrow  there  will  be  fighting.  It  is  well 
to  sleep  and  be  prepared." 

The  lepers  obeyed,  crawling  away  to 
their  lairs  in  the  cliff,  until  only  Koolau 
remained,  sitting  motionless  in  the  moon 
light,  his  rifle  across  his  knees,  as  he  gazed 
far  down  to  the  boats  landing  on  the  beach. 

The  far  head  of  Kalalau  Valley  had 
been  well  chosen  as  a  refuge.  Except 
Kiloliana,  who  knew  back-trails  up  the 
precipitous  walls,  no  man  could  win  to 
the  gorge  save  by  advancing  across  a 
knife-edged  ridge.  This  passage  was  a 
hundred  yards  in  length.  At  best,  it  was 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         61 

a  scant  twelve  inches  wide.  On  either 
side  yawned  the  abyss.  A  slip,  and  to 
right  or  left  the  man  would  fall  to  his 
death.  But  once  across  he  would  find 
himself  in  an  earthly  paradise.  A  sea  of 
vegetation  laved  the  landscape,  pouring 
its  green  billows  from  wall  to  wall,  drip 
ping  from  the  cliff-lips  in  great  vine- 
masses,  and  flinging  a  spray  of  ferns  and 
air-plants  into  the  multitudinous  crev 
ices.  During  the  many  months  of  Koo- 
lau's  rule,  he  and  his  followers  had 
fought  with  this  vegetable  sea.  The 
choking  jungle,  with  its  riot  of  blossoms, 
had  been  driven  back  from  the  bananas, 
oranges,  and  mangoes  that  grew  wild.  In 
little  clearings  grew  the  wild  arrowroot ; 
on  stone  terraces,  filled  with  soil  scrap 
ings,  were  the  taro  patches  and  the  mel 
ons  ;  and  in  every  open  space  where  the 


62         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

sunshine    penetrated,  were  papaia  trees 
burdened  with  their  golden  fruit. 

Koolau  had  been  driven  to  this  refuge 
from  the  lower  valley  by  the  beach.  And 
if  he  were  driven  from  it  in  turn,  he 
knew  of  gorges  among  the  jumbled  peaks 
of  the  inner  fastnesses  where  he  could 
lead  his  subjects  and  live.  And  now  he 
lay  with  his  rifle  beside  him,  peering 
down  through  a  tangled  screen  of  foliage 
at  the  soldiers  on  the  beach.  He  noted 
that  they  had  large  guns  with  them,  from 
which  the  sunshine  flashed  as  from 
mirrors.  The  knife-edged  passage  lay 
directly  before  him.  Crawling  upward 
along  the  trail  that  led  to  it  he  could  see 
tiny  specks  of  men.  He  knew  they  were 
not  the  soldiers,  but  the  police.  When 
they  failed,  then  the  soldiers  would  enter 
the  game. 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         63 

He  affectionately  rubbed  a  twisted 
hand  along  his  rifle  barrel  and  made  sure 
that  the  sights  were  clean.  He  had 
learned  to  shoot  as  a  wild-cattle  hunter  on 
Niihau,  and  on  that  island  his  skill  as 
a  marksman  was  unforgotten.  As  the 
toiling  specks  of  men  grew  nearer  and 
larger,  he  estimated  the  range,  judged 
the  deflection  of  the  wind  that  swept  at 
right  angles  across  the  line  of  fire,  and 
calculated  the  chances  of  overshooting 
marks  that  were  so  far  below  his  level. 
But  he  did  not  shoot.  Not  until  they 
reached  the  beginning  of  the  passage  did  he 
make  his  presence  known.  He  did  not  dis 
close  himself,  but  spoke  from  the  thicket. 
;•','  "What  do  you  want  ?"  he  demanded. 

"We  want  Koolau,  the  leper,"  an 
swered  the  man  who  led  the  native  police, 
himself  a  blue-eyed  American. 


64         KOOLAU  THE  LEPER 

"You  must  go  back,"  Koolau  said. 

He  knew  the  man,  a  deputy  sheriff,  for 
it  was  by  him  that  he  had  been  harried 
out  of  Niihau,  across  Kauai,  to  Kalalau 
Valley,  and  out  of  the  valley  to  the  gorge. 

"Who  are  you  ?"  the  sheriff  asked. 

"I  am  Koolau,  the  leper,"  was  the 
reply. 

"Then  come  out.  We  want  you.  Dead 
or  alive,  there  is  a  thousand  dollars  on 
your  head.  You  cannot  escape." 

Koolau  laughed  aloud  in  the  thicket. 

"Come  out!"  the  sheriff  commanded, 
and  was  answered  by  silence. 

He  conferred  with  the  police,  and 
Koolau  saw  that  they  were  preparing  to 
rush  him. 

"Koolau,"  the  sheriff  called.  "Koolau, 
I  am  coming  across  to  get  you." 

"Then  look  first  and  well  about  you  at 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         65 

the  sun  and  sea  and  sky,  for  it  will  be  the 
last  time  you  behold  them." 

"That's  all  right,  Koolau,"  the  sheriff 
said  soothingly.  "I  know  you're  a  dead 
shot.  But  you  won't  shoot  me.  I  have 
never  done  you  any  wrong." 

Koolau  grunted  in  the  thicket. 

"I  say,  you  know,  I've  never  done  you 
any  wrong,  have  I  ?"  the  sheriff  persisted. 

"You  do  me  wrong  when  you  try  to 
put  me  in  prison,"  was  the  reply.  "And 
you  do  me  wrong  when  you  try  for  the 
thousand  dollars  on  my  head.  If  you 
will  live,  stay  where  you  are." 

"I've  got  to  come  across  and  get  you. 
I'm  sorry.  But  it  is  my  duty." 

"You  will  die  before  you  get  across." 

The  sheriff  was  no  coward.  Yet  was 
he  undecided.  He  gazed  into  the  gulf  on 
either  side,  and  ran  his  eyes  along  the 


66         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

knife-edge  he  must  travel.  Then  he 
made  up  his  mind. 

"Koolau,"  he  called. 

But  the  thicket  remained  silent. 

"Koolau,  don't  shoot.     I  am  coming." 

The  sheriff  turned,  gave  some  orders 
to  the  police,  then  started  on  his  perilous 
way.  He  advanced  slowly.  It  was  like 
walking  a  tight  rope.  He  had  nothing  to 
lean  upon  but  the  air.  The  lava  rock 
crumbled  under  his  feet,  and  on  either 
side  the  dislodged  fragments  pitched 
downward  through  the  depths.  The  sun 
blazed  upon  him,  and  his  face  was  wet 
with  sweat.  Still  he  advanced,  until  the 
halfway  point  was  reached. 

"Stop  !"  Koolau  commanded  from  the 
thicket.  "One  more  step  and  I  shoot." 

The  sheriff  halted,  swaying  for  balance 
as  he  stood  poised  above  the  void.  His 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         67 

face  was  pale,  but  his  eyes  were  deter 
mined.  He  licked  his  dry  lips  before  he 
spoke. 

"Koolau,  you  won't  shoot  me.  I  know 
you  won't." 

He  started  once  more.  The  bullet 
whirled  him  half  about.x//On  his  face  was 
an  expression  of  querulous  surprise  as 
he  reeled  to  the  fall.  He  tried  to  save 
himself  by  throwing  his  body  across  the 
knife-edge ;  but  at  that  moment  he  knew 
death.  The  next  moment  the  knife-edge 
was  vacant.  Then  came  the  rush,  five 
policemen,  in  single  file,  with  superb 
steadiness,  running  along  the  knife-edge. 
At  the  same  instant  the  rest  of  the  posse 
opened  fire  on  the  thicket.  It  was  mad 
ness.  Five  times  Koolau  pulled  the 
trigger,  so  rapidly  that  his  shots  consti 
tuted  a  rattle.  Changing  his  position  and 


68         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

crouching  low  under  the  bullets  that 
were  biting  and  singing  through  the 
bushes,  he  peered  out.  Four  of  the 
police  had  followed  the  sheriff.  The  fifth 
lay  across  the  knife-edge,  still  alive.  On 
the  farther  side,  no  longer  firing,  were 
the  surviving  police.  On  the  naked  rock 
there  was  no  hope  for  them.  Before  they 
could  clamber  down  Koolau  could  have 
picked  off  the  last  man.  But  he  did  not 
fire,  and,  after  a  conference,  one  of  them 
took  off  a  white  undershirt  and  waved 
it  as  a  flag.  Followed  by  another,  he 
advanced  along  the  knife-edge  to  their 
wounded  comrade.  Koolau  gave  no 
sign,  but  watched  them  slowly  withdraw 
and  become  specks  as  they  descended  into 
the  lower  valley. 

Two  hours  later,  from  another  thicket, 
Koolau  watched  a  body  of  police  trying  to 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         69 

make  the  ascent  from  the  opposite  side 
of  the  valley.  He  saw  the  wild  goats  flee 
before  them  as  they  climbed  higher  and 
higher,  until  he  doubted  his  judgment 
and  sent  for  Kiloliana  who  crawled  in 
beside  him. 

"No,  there  is  no  way,"  said  Kiloliana. 

"The  goats  ?"  Koolau  questioned. 

"They  come  over  from  the  next  valley, 
but  they  cannot  pass  to  this.  There  is 
no  way.  Those  men  are  not  wiser  than 
goats.  They  may  fall  to  their  deaths. 
Let  us  watch." 

"They  are  brave  men,"  said  Koolau. 
"Let  us  watch." 

Side  by  side  they  lay  among  the 
morning-glories,  with  the  yellow  blos 
soms  of  the  hau  dropping  upon  them 
from  overhead,  watching  the  motes  of 
men  toil  upward,  till  the  thing  happened, 


70         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

and  three  of  them,  slipping,  rolling, 
sliding,  dashed  over  a  cliff-lip  and  fell 
sheer  half  a  thousand  feet. 

Kiloliana  chuckled. 

"We  will  be  bothered  no  more,"  he 
said. 

"They  have  war  guns,"  Koolau  made 
answer.  "The  soldiers  have  not  yet 
spoken." 

In  the  drowsy  afternoon,  most  of  the 
lepers  lay  in  their  rock  dens  asleep. 
Koolau,  his  rifle  on  his  knees,  fresh- 
cleaned  and  ready,  dozed  in  the  entrance 
to  his  own  den.  The  maid  with  the 
twisted  arm  lay  below  in  the  thicket  and 
kept  watch  on  the  knife-edge  passage. 
Suddenly  Koolau  was  startled  wide  awake 
by  the  sound  of  an  explosion  on  the 
beach.  The  next  instant  the  atmosphere 
was  incredibly  rent  asunder.  The 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         71 

terrible  sound  frightened  him.  It  was 
as  if  all  the  gods  had  caught  the  envelope 
of  the  sky  in  their  hands  and  were  rip 
ping  it  apart  as  a  woman  rips  apart  a 
sheet  of  cotton  cloth.  But  it  was  such  an 
immense  ripping,  growing  swiftly  nearer. 
Koolau  glanced  up  apprehensively,  as  if 
expecting  to  see  the  thing.  Then  high 
up  on  the  cliff  overhead  the  shell  burst 
in  a  fountain  of  black  smoke.  The  rock 
was  shattered,  the  fragments  falling  to 
the  foot  of  the  cliff. 

Koolau  passed  his  hand  across  his 
sweaty  brow.  He  was  terribly  shaken. 
He  had  had  no  experience  with  shell-fire, 
and  this  was  more  dreadful  than  any 
thing  he  had  imagined. 

"One,"  said  Kapahei,  suddenly  be 
thinking  himself  to  keep  count. 

A  second  and  a  third  shell  flew  scream- 


72         KOOLAU  THE  LEPER 

ing  over  the  top  of  the  wall,  bursting 
beyond  view.  Kapahei  methodically 
kept  the  count.  The  lepers  crowded  into 
the  open  space  before  the  caves.  At  first 
they  were  frightened,  but  as  the  shells 
continued  their  flight  overhead  the  leper 
folk  became  reassured  and  began  to 
admire  the  spectacle.  The  two  idiots 
shrieked  with  delight,  prancing  wild 
antics  as  each  air-tormenting  shell  went 
by.  Koolau  began  to  recover  his  confi 
dence.  No  damage  was  being  done. 
Evidently  they  could  not  aim  such  large 
missiles  at  such  long  range  with  the  pre 
cision  of  a  rifle. 

But  a  change  came  over  the  situation. 
The  shells  began  to  fall  short.  One 
burst  below  in  the  thicket  by  the  knife- 
edge.  Koolau  remembered  the  maid  who 
lay  there  on  watch,  and  ran  down  to  see. 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         73 

The  smoke  was  still  rising  from  the 
bushes  when  he  crawled  in.  He  was 
astounded.  The  branches  were  splin 
tered  and  broken.  Where  the  girl  had 
lain  was  a  hole  in  the  ground.  The  girl 
herself  was  in  shattered  fragments.  The 
shell  had  burst  right  on  her. 

First  peering  out  to  make  sure  no 
soldiers  were  attempting  the  passage, 
Koolau  started  back  on  the  run  for  the 
caves.  All  the  time  the  shells  were 
moaning,  whining,  screaming  by,  and  the 
valley  was  rumbling  and  reverberating 
with  the  explosions.  As  he  came  in 
sight  of  the  caves,  he  saw  the  two  idiots 
cavorting  about,  clutching  each  other's 
hands  with  their  stumps  of  fingers.  Even 
as  he  ran,  Koolau  saw  a  spout  of  black 
smoke  rise  from  the  ground,  near  to  the 
idiots.  They  were  flung  apart  bodily 


74         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

by  the  explosion.  One  lay  motionless,  but 
the  other  was  dragging  himself  by  his 
hands  toward  the  cave.  His  legs  trailed 
out  helplessly  behind  him,  while  the 
blood  was  pouring  from  his  body.  He 
seemed  bathed  in  blood,  and  as  he  crawled 
he  cried  like  a  little  dog.  The  rest  of 
the  lepers,  with  the  exception  of  Kapahei, 
had  fled  into  the  caves. 

"Seventeen,"  said  Kapahei.  " Eigh 
teen,"  he  added. 

This  last  shell  had  fairly  entered  into 
one  of  the  caves.  The  explosion  caused 
all  the  caves  to  empty.  But  from  the 
particular  cave  no  one  emerged.  Koolau 
crept  in  through  the  pungent,  acrid  smoke. 
Four  bodies,  frightfully  mangled,  lay 
about.  One  of  them  was  the  sightless 
woman  whose  tears  till  now  had  never 
ceased. 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         75 

Outside,  Koolau  found  his  people  in  a 
panic  and  already  beginning  to  climb  the 
goat  trail  that  led  out  of  the  gorge  and 
on  among  the  jumbled  heights  and 
chasms.  The  wounded  idiot,  whining 
feebly  and  dragging  himself  along  on  the 
ground  by  his  hands,  was  trying  to  fol 
low.  But  at  the  first  pitch  of  the  wall  his 
helplessness  overcame  him  and  he  fell 
back. 

"It  would  be  better  to  kill  him,"  said 
Koolau  to  Kapahei,  who  still  sat  in  the 
same  place. 

"Twenty-two,"  Kapahei  answered. 
"Yes,  it  would  be  a  wise  thing  to  kill  him. 
Twenty-three  —  twenty-four." 

The  idiot  whined  sharply  when  he  saw 
the  rifle  leveled  at  him.  Koolau  hesi 
tated,  then  lowered  the  gun. 

"It  is  a  hard  thing  to  do,"  he  said. 


76         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

"You  are  a  fool,  twenty-six,  twenty- 
seven,"  said  Kapahei.  "Let  me  show 
you." 

He  arose  and,  with  a  heavy  fragment 
of  rock  in  his  hand,  approached  the 
wounded  thing.  As  he  lifted  his  arm  to 
strike,  a  shell  burst  full  upon  him,  reliev 
ing  him  of  the  necessity  of  the  act  and 
at  the  same  time  putting  an  end  to  his 
count. 

Koolau  was  alone  in  the  gorge.  He 
watched  the  last  of  his  people  drag  their 
crippled  bodies  over  the  brow  of  the 
height  and  disappear.  Then  he  turned 
and  went  down  to  the  thicket  where  the 
maid  had  been  killed.  The  shell-fire  still 
continued,  but  he  remained;  for  far 
below  he  could  see  the  soldiers  climbling 
up.  A  shell  burst  twenty  feet  away. 
Flattening  himself  into  the  earth,  he 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         77 

heard  the  rush  of  the  fragments  above 
his  body.  A  shower  of  hau  blossoms 
rained  upon  him.  He  lifted  his  head  to 
peer  down  the  trail,  and  sighed.  He  was 
very  much  afraid.  Bullets  from  rifles 
would  not  have  worried  him,  but  this 
shell-fire  was  abominable.  Each  time  a 
shell  shrieked  by  he  shivered  and 
crouched ;  but  each  time  he  lifted  his 
head  again  to  watch  the  trail. 

At  last  the  shells  ceased.  This,  he 
reasoned,  was  because  the  soldiers  were 
drawing  near.  They  crept  along  the 
trail  in  single  file,  and  he  tried  to  count 
them  until  he  lost  track.  At  any  rate, 
there  were  a  hundred  or  so  of  them  — 
all  come  after  Koolau  the  leper.  He  felt 
a  fleeting  prod  of  pride.  With  war  guns 
and  rifles,  police  and  soldiers,  they  came 
for  him,  and  he  was  only  one  man,  a 


78         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

crippled  wreck  of  a  man  at  that.  They 
offered  a  thousand  dollars  for  him,  dead 
or  alive.  In  all  his  life  he  had  never 
possessed  that  much  money.  The 
thought  was  a  bitter  one.  Kapahei  had 
been  right.  He,  Koolau,  had  done  no 
wrong.  Because  the  haoles  wanted  labor 
with  which  to  work  the  stolen  land,  they 
had  brought  in  the  Chinese  coolies,  and 
with  them  had  come  the  sickness.  And 
now,  because  he  had  caught  the  sickness, 
he  was  worth  a  thousand  dollars  —  but 
not  to  himself.  It  was  his  worthless  car 
cass,  rotten  with  disease  or  dead  from  a 
bursting  shell,  that  was  worth  all  that 
money. 

When  the  soldiers  reached  the  knife- 
edged  passage,  he  was  prompted  to  warn 
them.  But  his  gaze  fell  upon  the  body 
of  the  murdered  maid,  and  he  kept 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         79 

silent.  When  six  had  ventured  on  the 
knife-edge,  he  opened  fire.  Nor  did  he 
cease  when  the  knife-edge  was  bare.  He 
emptied  his  magazine,  reloaded,  and 
emptied  it  again.  He  kept  on  shooting. 
All  his  wrongs  were  blazing  in  his  brain, 
and  he  was  in  a  fury  of  vengeance.  All 
down  the  goat  trail  the  soldiers  were 
firing,  and  though  they  lay  flat  and 
sought  to  shelter  themselves  in  the  shal 
low  inequalities  of  the  surface,  they  were 
exposed  marks  to  him.  Bullets  whistled 
and  thudded  about  him,  and  an  occasional 
ricochet  sang  sharply  through  the  air. 
One  bullet  ploughed  a  crease  through  his 
scalp,  and  a  second  burned  across  his 
shoulder-blade  without  breaking  the  skin. 
It  was  a  massacre,  in  which  one  man 
did  the  killing.  The  soldiers  began  to 
retreat,  helping  along  their  wounded.  As 


80         KOOLAU  THE  LEPER 

Koolau  picked  them  off  he  became  aware 
of  the  smell  of  burnt  meat.  He  glanced 
about  him  at  first,  and  then  discovered 
that  it  was  his  own  hands.  The  heat 
of  the  rifle  was  doing  it.  The  leprosy 
had  destroyed  most  of  the  nerves  in 
his  hands.  Though  his  flesh  burned  and 
he  smelled  it,  there  was  no  sensation. 

He  lay  in  the  thicket,  smiling,  until  he 
remembered  the  war  guns.  Without 
doubt  they  would  open  up  on  him  again, 
and  this  time  upon  the  very  thicket 
from  which  he  had  inflicted  the  damage. 
Scarcely  had  he  changed  his  position  to  a 
nook  behind  a  small  shoulder  of  the  wall 
where  he  had  noted  that  no  shells  fell, 
than  the  bombardment  recommenced.  He 
counted  the  shells.  Sixty  more  were 
thrown  into  the  gorge  before  the  war- 
guns  ceased.  The  tiny  area  was  pitted 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         81 

with  their  explosions,  until  it  seemed 
impossible  that  any  creature  could  have 
survived.  So  the  soldiers  thought,  for, 
under  the  burning  afternoon  sun,  they 
climbed  the  goat  trail  again.  And  again 
the  knife-edged  passage  was  disputed, 
and  again  they  fell  back  to  the  beach. 

For  two  days  longer  Koolau  held  the 
passage,  though  the  soldiers  contented 
themselves  with  flinging  shells  into  his 
retreat.  Then  Pahau,  a  leper  boy,  came 
to  the  top  of  the  wall  at  the  back  of  the 
gorge  and  shouted  down  to  him  that 
Kiloliana,  hunting  goats  that  they  might 
eat,  had  been  killed  by  a  fall,  and  that 
the  women  were  frightened  and  knew  not 
what  to  do.  Koolau  called  the  boy  down 
and  left  him  with  a  spare  gun  with  which 
to  guard  the  passage.  Koolau  found 
his  people  disheartened.  The  majority 


82         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

of  them  were  too  helpless  to  forage  food 
for  themselves  under  such  forbidding 
circumstances,  and  all  were  starving. 
He  selected  two  women  and  a  man  who 
were  not  too  far  gone  with  the  disease, 
and  sent  them  back  to  the  gorge  to 
bring  up  food  and  mats.  The  rest  he 
cheered  and  consoled  until  even  the 
weakest  took  a  hand  in  building  rough 
shelters  for  themselves. 

But  those  he  had  dispatched  for  food 
did  not  return,  and  he  started  back  for 
the  gorge.  As  he  came  out  on  the  brow 
of  the  wall,  half  a  dozen  rifles  cracked. 
A  bullet  tore  through  the  fleshy  part  of 
his  shoulder,  and  his  cheek  was  cut  by  a 
sliver  of  rock  where  a  second  bullet 
smashed  against  the  cliff.  In  the  moment 
that  this  happened,  and  he  leaped  back, 
he  saw  that  the  gorge  was  alive  with 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         83 

soldiers.  His  own  people  had  betrayed 
him.  The  shell-fire  had  been  too  terrible, 
and  they  had  preferred  the  prison  of 
Molokai. 

Koolau  dropped  back  and  unslung 
one  of  his  heavy  cartridge-belts.  Lying 
among  the  rocks,  he  allowed  the  head 
and  shoulders  of  the  first  soldier  to  rise 
clearly  into  view  before  pulling  trigger. 
Twice  this  happened,  and  then,  after 
some  delay,  in  place  of  a  head  and 
shoulders  a  white  flag  was  thrust  above 
the  edge  of  the  wall. 

"What  do  you  want  ?"  he  demanded. 

"I  want  you,  if  you  are  Koolau  the 
leper,"  came  the  answer. 

Koolau  forgot  where  he  was,  forgot 
everything,  as  he  lay  and  marvelled  at 
the  strange  persistence  of  these  haoles 
who  would  have  their  will  though  the  sky 


84         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

fell  in.  Aye,  they  would  have  their  will 
over  all  men  and  all  things,  even  though 
they  died  in  getting  it.  He  could  not  but 
admire  them,  too,  what  of  that  will  in 
them  that  was  stronger  than  life  and  that 
bent  all  things  to  their  bidding.  He 
was  convinced  of  the  hopelessness  of  his 
struggle.  There  was  no  gainsaying  that 
terrible  will  of  the  haoles.  Though  he 
killed  a  thousand,  yet  would  they  rise 
like  the  sands  of  the  sea  and  come  upon 
him,  ever  more  and  more.  They  never 
knew  when  they  were  beaten.  That  was 
their  fault  and  their  virtue.  It  was 
where  his  own  kind  lacked.  He  could  see, 
now,  how  the  handful  of  the  preachers 
of  God  and  the  preachers  of  Rum  had 
conquered  the  land.  It  was  because  — 
"Well,  what  have  you  got  to  say  ? 
Will  you  come  with  me  ?" 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         85 

It  was  the  voice  of  the  invisible  man 
under  the  white  flag.  There  he  was,  like 
any  haole,  driving  straight  toward  the 
end  determined. 

"Let  us  talk,"  said  Koolau. 

The  man's  head  and  shoulders  arose, 
then  his  whole  body.  He  was  a  smooth 
faced,  blue-eyed  youngster  of  twenty-five, 
slender  and  natty  in  his  captain's  uni 
form.  He  advanced  until  halted,  then 
seated  himself  a  dozen  feet  away:  — 

"You  are  a  brave  man,"  said  Koolau 
wonderingly.  "  I  could  kill  you  like  a  fly." 

"No,  you  couldn't,"  was  the  answer. 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  you  are  a  man,  Koolau, 
though  a  bad  one.  I  know  your  story. 
You  kill  fairly." 

Koolau  grunted,  but  was  secretly 
pleased. 


86         KOOLAU  THE  LEPER 

"What  have  you  done  with  my 
people?"  he  demanded.  "The  boy,  the 
two  women,  and  the  man  ?" 

"They  gave  themselves  up,  as  I  have 
now  come  for  you  to  do." 

Koolau  laughed  incredulously. 

"I  am  a  free  man,"  he  announced.  "I 
have  done  no  wrong.  All  I  ask  is  to  be 
left  alone.  I  have  lived  free,  and  I  shall 
die  free.  I  will  never  give  myself  up." 

"Then  your  people  are  wiser  than 
you,"  answered  the  young  captain. 
"Look  —  they  are  coming  now." 

Koolau  turned  and  watched  the  rem 
nant  of  his  band  approach.  Groaning 
and  sighing,  a  ghastly  procession,  it 
dragged  its  wretchedness  past.  It  was 
given  to  Koolau  to  taste  a  deeper  bitter 
ness,  for  they  hurled  imprecations  and 
insults  at  him  as  they  went  by ;  and  the 


KOOLAU  THE  LEPER         87 

panting  hag  who  brought  up  the  rear 
halted,  and  with  skinny,  harpy-claws 
extended,  shaking  her  snarling  death's 
head  from  side  to  side,  she  laid  a  curse 
upon  him.  One  by  one  they  dropped 
over  the  lip-edge  and  surrendered  to  the 
hiding  soldiers. 

"You  can  go  now,"  said  Koolau  to  the 
captain.  "I  will  never  give  myself  up. 
That  is  my  last  word.  Good-by." 

The  captain  slipped  over  the  cliff  to 
his  soldiers.  The  next  moment,  and 
without  a  flag  of  truce,  he  hoisted  his  hat 
on  his  scabbard,  and  Koolau's  bullet  tore 
through  it.  That  afternoon  they  shelled 
him  out  from  the  beach,  and  as  he  re 
treated  into  the  high  inaccessible  pockets 
beyond,  the  soldiers  followed  him. 

For  six  weeks  they  hunted  him  from 
pocket  to  pocket,  over  the  volcanic  peaks 


88         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

and  along  the  goat  trails.  When  he  hid 
in  the  lantana  jungle,  they  formed  lines 
of  beaters,  and  through  lantana  jungle 
and  guava  scrub  they  drove  him  like  a 
rabbit.  But  ever  he  turned  and  doubled 
and  eluded.  There  was  no  cornering 
him.  When  pressed  too  closely,  his  sure 
rifle  held  them  back  and  they  carried 
their  wounded  down  the  goat  trails  to 
the  beach.  There  were  times  when  they 
did  the  shooting  as  his  brown  body 
showed  for  a  moment  through  the  under 
brush.  Once,  five  of  them  caught  him  on 
an  exposed  goat  trail  between  pockets. 
They  emptied  their  rifles  at  him  as  he 
limped  and  climbed  along  his  dizzy  way. 
Afterward  they  found  blood-stains  and 
knew  that  he  was  wounded.  At  the  end 
of  six  weeks  they  gave  up.  The  soldiers 
and  police  returned  to  Honolulu,  and 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         89 

Kalalau  Valley  was  left  to  him  for  his 
own,  though  head-hunters  ventured  after 
him  from  time  to  time  and  to  their  own 
undoing. 

Two  years  later,  and  for  the  last  time, 
Koolau  crawled  unto  a  thicket  and  lay 
down  among  the  ^'-leaves  and  wild  ginger 
blossoms.  Free  he  had  lived,  and  free 
he  was  dying.  A  slight  drizzle  of  rain 
began  to  fall,  and  he  drew  a  ragged 
blanket  about  the  distorted  wreck  of  his 
limbs.  His  body  was  covered  with  an 
oilskin  coat.  Across  his  chest  he  laid 
his  Mauser  rifle,  lingering  affectionately 
for  a  moment  to  wipe  the  dampness  from 
the  barrel.  The  hand  with  which  he 
wiped  had  no  fingers  left  upon  it  with 
which  to  pull  the  trigger. 

He  closed  his  eyes,  for,  from  the 
weakness  in  his  body  and  the  fuzzy  tur- 


90         KOOLAU  THE   LEPER 

moil  in  his  brain,  he  knew  that  his  end 
was  near.  Like  a  wild  animal  he  had 
crept  into  hiding  to  die.  Half-conscious, 
aimless  and  wandering,  he  lived  back 
in  his  life  to  his  early  manhood  on  Niihau. 
As  life  faded  and  the  drip  of  the  rain 
grew  dim  in  his  ears,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  he  was  once  more  in  the  thick  of  the 
horse-breaking,  with  raw  colts  rearing 
and  bucking  under  him,  his  stirrups  tied 
together  beneath,  or  charging  madly 
about  the  breaking  corral  and  driving  the 
helping  cowboys  over  the  rails.  The 
next  instant,  and  with  seeming  natural 
ness,  he  found  himself  pursuing  the  wild 
bulls  of  the  upland  pastures,  roping  them 
and  leading  them  down  to  the  valleys. 
Again  the  sweat  and  dust  of  the  brand 
ing  pen  stung  his  eyes  and  bit  his  nostrils. 
All  his  lusty,  whole-bodied  youth  was 


KOOLAU  THE   LEPER         91 

his,  until  the  sharp  pangs  of  impending 
dissolution  brought  him  back.  He  lifted 
his  monstrous  hands  and  gazed  at  them 
in  wonder.  But  how  ?  Why  ?  Why 
should  the  wholeness  of  that  wild  youth 
of  his  change  to  this  ?  Then  he  remem 
bered,  and  once  again,  and  for  a  moment, 
he  was  Koolau,  the  leper.  His  eyelids 
fluttered  wearily  down  and  the  drip  of 
the  rain  ceased  in  his  ears.  A  prolonged 
trembling  set  up  in  his  body.  This,  too, 
ceased.  He  half-lifted  his  head,  but  it 
fell  back.  Then  his  eyes  opened,  and  did 
not  close.  His  last  thought  was  of  his 
Mauser,  and  he  pressed  it  against  his 
chest  with  his  folded,  fingerless  hands. 


Ill 

GOOD-BY,  JACK 


GOCD-EY,  JACK 

HAWAII  is  a  queer  place.  Every 
thing  socially  is  what  I  may 
call  topsy-turvy.  Not  but  what 
things  are  correct.  They  are  almost  too 
much  so.  But  still  things  are  sort  of 
upside  down.  The  most  ultra-exclusive 
set  there  is  the  "Missionary  Crowd." 
It  comes  with  rather  a  shock  to  learn  that 
in  Hawaii  the  obscure,  martyrdom-seek 
ing  missionary  sits  at  the  head  of  the 
table  of  the  moneyed  aristocracy.  But 
it  is  true.  The  humble  New  Englanders 
who  came  out  in  the  third  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  came  for  the  lofty 
purpose  of  teaching  the  kanakas  the  true 
religion,  the  worship  of  the  one  only 
genuine  and  undeniable  God.  So  well 

95 


96  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

did  they  succeed  in  this,  and  also  in  civil 
izing  the  kanaka,  that  by  the  second  or 
third  generation  he  was  practically  ex 
tinct.  This  being  the  fruit  of  the  seed 
of  the  Gospel,  the  fruit  of  the  seed  of  the 
missionaries  (the  sons  and  the  grandsons) 
was  the  possession  of  the  islands  them 
selves,  —  of  the  land,  the  ports,  the  town 
sites,  and  the  sugar  plantations.  The 
missionary  who  came  to  give  the  bread 
of  life  remained  to  gobble  up  the  whole 
heathen  feast. 

But  that  is  not  the  Hawaiian  queerness 
I  started  out  to  tell.  Only  one  cannot 
speak  of  things  Hawaiian  without  men 
tioning  the  missionaries.  There  is  Jack 
Kersdale,  the  man  I  wanted  to  tell 
about ;  he  came  of  missionary  stock. 
That  is,  on  his  grandmother's  side.  His 
grandfather  was  old  Benjamin  Kersdale, 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  97 

a  Yankee  trader,  who  got  his  start  for  a 
million  in  the  old  days  by  selling  cheap 
whiskey  and  square-face  gin.  There's 
another  queer  thing.  The  old  mission 
aries  and  old  traders  were  mortal  ene 
mies.  You  see,  their  interests  conflicted. 
But  their  children  made  it  up  by  inter 
marrying  and  dividing  the  islands  be 
tween  them. 

Life  in  Hawaii  is  a  song.  That's  the 
way  Stoddard  put  it  in  his  "Hawaii 
Noi":  — 

"Thy  life  is  music  —  Fate  the  notes  prolong  ! 
Each  isle  a  stanza,  and  the  whole  a  song." 

And  he  was  right.  Flesh  is  golden 
there.  The  native  women  are  sun-ripe 
Junos,  the  native  men  bronzed  Apollos. 
They  sing,  and  dance,  and  all  are  flower- 
bejewelled  and  flower-crowned.  And, 
outside  the  rigid  "Missionary  Crowd," 


98  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

the  white  men  yield  to  the  climate  and 
the  sun,  and  no  matter  how  busy  they 
may  be,  are  prone  to  dance  and  sing  and 
wear  flowers  behind  their  ears  and  in 
their  hair.  Jack  Kersdale  was  one  of 
these  fellows.  He  was  one  of  the  busiest 
men  I  ever  met.  He  was  a  several- 
times  millionaire.  He  was  a  sugar  king, 
a  coffee  planter,  a  rubber  pioneer,  a 
cattle  rancher,  and  a  promoter  of  three 
out  of  every  four  new  enterprises  launched 
in  the  islands.  He  was  a  society  man,  a 
club  man,  a  yachtsman,  a  bachelor,  and 
withal  as  handsome  a  man  as  was  ever 
doted  upon  by  mamas  with  marriage 
able  daughters.  Incidentally,  he  had  fin 
ished  his  education  at  Yale,  and  his  head 
was  crammed  fuller  with  vital  statistics 
and  scholarly  information  concerning 
Hawaii  Nei  than  any  other  islander  I  ever 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  99 

encountered.  He  turned  off  an  immense 
amount  of  work,  and  he  sang  and  danced 
and  put  flowers  in  his  hair  as  immensely 
as  any  of  the  idlers. 

He  had  grit,  and  had  fought  two  duels — 
both  political  —  when  he  was  no  more 
than  a  raw  youth  essaying  his  first  ad 
ventures  in  politics.  In  fact,  he  played 
a  most  creditable  and  courageous  part 
in  the  last  revolution,  when  the  native 
dynasty  was  overthrown ;  and  he  could 
not  have  been  over  sixteen  at  the  time. 
I  am  pointing  out  that  he  was  no  coward, 
in  order  that  you  may  appreciate  what 
happens  later  on.  I've  seen  him  in  the 
breaking  yard  at  the  Haleakala  Ranch, 
conquering  a  four-year-old  brute  that 
for  two  years  had  defied  the  pick  of  Von 
Tempsky's  cow-boys.  And  I  must  tell 
of  one  other  thing.  It  was  down  in 


ioo  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

Kona,  —  or  up,  rather,  for  the  Kona 
people  scorn  to  live  at  less  than  a  thou 
sand  feet  elevation.  We  were  all  on  the 
lanai  of  Doctor  Goodhue's  bungalow. 
I  was  talking  with  Dottie  Fairchild  when 
it  happened.  A  big  centipede  —  it  was 
seven  inches,  for  we  measured  it  after 
ward  —  fell  from  the  rafters  overhead 
squarely  into  her  coiffure.  I  confess, 
the  hideousness  of  it  paralyzed  me.  I 
couldn't  move.  My  mind  refused  to 
work.  There,  within  two  feet  of  me, 
the  ugly  venomous  devil  was  writhing  in 
her  hair.  It  threatened  at  any  moment 
to  fall  down  upon  her  exposed  shoulders 
—  we  had  just  come  out  from  dinner. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked,  starting  to 
raise  her  hand  to  her  head. 
"Don't!"   I  cried.     "Don't!" 
"But  what  is  it?"  she  insisted,  grow- 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  101 

ing  frightened  by  the  fright  she  read  in 
my  eyes  and  on  my  stammering  lips. 

My  exclamation  attracted  Kersdale's 
attention.  He  glanced  our  way  care 
lessly,  but  in  that  glance  took  in  every 
thing.  He  came  over  to  us,  but  without 
haste. 

"Please  don't  move,  Dottie,"  he  said 
quietly. 

He  never  hesitated,  nor  did  he  hurry 
and  make  a  bungle  of  it. 

"Allow  me,"  he  said. 

And  with  one  hand  he  caught  her  scarf 
and  drew  it  tightly  around  her  shoulders 
so  that  the  centipede  could  not  fall  in 
side  her  bodice.  With  the  other  hand 
—  the  right  —  he  reached  into  her  hair, 
caught  the  repulsive  abomination  as 
near  as  he  was  able  by  the  nape  of  the 
neck,  and  held  it  tightly  between  thumb 


102  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

and  forefinger  as  he  withdrew  it  from  her 
hair.  It  was  as  horrible  and  heroic  a  sight 
as  man  could  wish  to  see.  It  made  my 
flesh  crawl.  The  centipede,  seven  inches 
of  squirming  legs,  writhed  and  twisted 
and  dashed  itself  about  his  hand,  the 
body  twining  around  the  fingers  and  the 
legs  digging  into  the  skin  and  scratching 
as  the  beast  endeavored  to  free  itself. 
It  bit  him  twice  —  I  saw  it  —  though  he 
assured  the  ladies  that  he  was  not  harmed 
as  he  dropped  it  upon  the  walk  and 
stamped  it  into  the  gravel.  But  I  saw 
him  in  the  surgery  five  minutes  after 
ward,  with  Doctor  Goodhue  scarifying 
the  wounds  and  injecting  permanganate 
of  potash.  The  next  morning  Kers- 
dale's  arm  was  as  big  as  a  barrel,  and  it 
was  three  weeks  before  the  swelling  went 
down. 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  103 

All  of  which  has  nothing  to  do  with 
my  story,  but  which  I  could  not  avoid 
giving  in  order  to  show  that  Jack  Kers- 
dale  was  anything  but  a  coward.  It  was 
the  cleanest  exhibition  of  grit  I  have  ever 
seen.  He  never  turned  a  hair.  The 
smile  never  left  his  lips.  And  he  dived 
with  thumb  and  forefinger  into  Dottie 
Fairchild's  hair  as  gayly  as  if  it  had  been 
a  box  of  salted  almonds.  Yet  that  was 
the  man  I  was  destined  to  see  stricken 
with  fear  a  thousand  times  more  hideous 
even  than  the  fear  that  was  mine  when 
I  saw  that  writhing  abomination  in 
Dottie  Fairchild's  hair,  dangling  over 
her  eyes  and  the  trap  of  her  bodice. 

I  was  interested  in  leprosy,  and  upon 
that,  as  upon  every  other  island  subject, 
Kersdale  had  encyclopedic  knowledge. 
In  fact,  leprosy  was  one  of  his  hobbies. 


io4  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

He  was  an  ardent  defender  of  the  settle 
ment  at  Molokai,  where  all  the  island 
lepers  were  segregated.  There  was  much 
talk  and  feeling  among  the  natives, 
fanned  by  the  demagogues,  concerning 
the  cruelties  of  Molokai,  where  men  and 
women,  not  alone  banished  from  friends 
and  family,  were  compelled  to  live  in 
perpetual  imprisonment  until  they  died. 
There  were  no  reprieves,  no  commuta 
tions  of  sentences.  "Abandon  hope" 
was  written  over  the  portal  of  Molokai. 
"I  tell  you  they  are  happy  there," 
Kersdale  insisted.  "And  they  are  in 
finitely  better  off  than  their  friends  and 
relatives  outside  who  have  nothing  the 
matter  with  them.  The  horrors  of  Molo 
kai  are  all  poppycock.  I  can  take  you 
through  any  hospital  or  any  slum  in  any 
of  the  great  cities  of  the  world  and  show 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  105 

you  a  thousand  times  worse  horrors. 
The  living  death !  The  creatures  that 
once  were  men  !  Bosh  !  You  ought  to 
see  those  living  deaths  racing  horses 
on  the  Fourth  of  July.  Some  of  them 
own  boats.  One  has  a  gasoline  launch. 
They  have  nothing  to  do  but  have  a 
good  time.  Food,  shelter,  clothes,  medi 
cal  attendance,  everything,  is  theirs. 
They  are  the  wards  of  the  Territory. 
They  have  a  much  finer  climate  than 
Honolulu,  and  the  scenery  is  magnifi 
cent.  I  shouldn't  mind  going  down 
there  myself  for  the  rest  of  my  days. 
It  is  a  lovely  spot." 

So  Kersdale  on  the  joyous  leper.  He 
was  not  afraid  of  leprosy.  He  said  so 
himself,  and  that  there  wasn't  one  chance 
in  a  million  for  him  or  any  other  white 
man  to  catch  it,  though  he  confessed 


106  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

afterward  that  one  of  his  school  chums, 
Alfred  Starter,  had  contracted  it,  gone 
to  Molokai,  and  there  died. 

"You  know,  in  the  old  days,"  Kers- 
dale  explained,  "there  was  no  certain 
test  for  leprosy.  Anything  unusual  or 
abnormal  was  sufficient  to  send  a  fellow 
to  Molokai.  The  result  was  that  dozens 
were  sent  there  who  were  no  more  lepers 
than  you  or  I.  But  they  don't  make 
that  mistake  now.  The  Board  of  Health 
tests  are  infallible.  The  funny  thing  is 
that  when  the  test  was  discovered  they 
immediately  went  down  to  Molokai  and 
applied  it,  and  they  found  a  number  who 
were  not  lepers.  These  were  immedi 
ately  deported.  Happy  to  get  away  ? 
They  wailed  harder  at  leaving  the  settle 
ment  than  when  they  left  Honolulu  to 
go  to  it.  Some  refused  to  leave,  and 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  107 

really  had  to  be  forced  out.  One  of 
them  even  married  a  leper  woman  in  the 
last  stages  and  then  wrote  pathetic 
letters  to  the  Board  of  Health,  protesting 
against  his  expulsion  on  the  ground  that 
no  one  was  so  well  able  as  he  to  take  care 
of  his  poor  old  wife." 

"What  is  this  infallible  test?"  I  de 
manded. 

"The  bacteriological  test.  There  is 
no  getting  away  from  it.  Doctor  Hervey 
—  he's  our  expert,  you  know  —  was  the 
first  man  to  apply  it  here.  He  is  a  wiz 
ard.  He  knows  more  about  leprosy  than 
any  living  man,  and  if  a  cure  is  ever 
discovered,  he'll  be  that  discoverer.  As 
for  the  test,  it  is  very  simple.  They 
have  succeeded  in  isolating  the  bacillus 
leprae  and  studying  it.  They  know  it 
now  when  they  see  it.  All  they  do  is  to 


io8  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

snip  a  bit  of  skin  from  the  suspect  and 
subject  it  to  the  bacteriological  test. 
A  man  without  any  visible  symptoms 
may  be  chock  full  of  the  leprosy  ba 
cilli." 

i  "Then  you  or  I,  for  all  we  know,"  I 
suggested,  "may  be  full  of  it  now." 

Kersdale  shrugged  his  shoulders  and 
laughed. 

"Who  can  say  ?  It  takes  seven  years 
for  it  to  incubate.  If  you  have  any 
doubts  go  and  see  Doctor  Hervey.  He'll 
just  snip  out  a  piece  of  your  skin  and  let 
you  know  in  a  jiffy." 

Later  on  he  introduced  me  to  Dr. 
Hervey,  who  loaded  me  down  with  Board 
of  Health  reports  and  pamphlets  on  the 
subject,  and  took  me  out  to  Kalihi,  the 
Honolulu  receiving  station,  where  sus 
pects  were  examined  and  confirmed 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  109 

lepers  were  held  for  deportation  to  Molo- 
kai.  These  deportations  occurred  about 
once  a  month,  when,  the  last  good-bys 
said,  the  lepers  were  marched  on  board 
the  little  steamer,  the  Noeau,  and  carried 
down  to  the  settlement. 

One  afternoon,  writing  letters  at  the 
club,  Jack  Kersdale  dropped  in  on  me. 

"Just  the  man  I  want  to  see,"  was  his 
greeting.  "I'll  show  you  the  saddest 
aspect  of  the  whole  situation  —  the  lepers 
wailing  as  they  depart  for  Molokai. 
The  Noeau  will  be  taking  them  on  board 
in  a  few  minutes.  But  let  me  warn  you 
not  to  let  your  feelings  be  harrowed. 
Real  as  their  grief  is,  they'd  wail  a  whole 
sight  harder  a  year  hence  if  the  Board  of 
Health  tried  to  take  them  away  from 
Molokai.  We've  just  time  for  a  whiskey 
and  soda.  I've  a  carriage  outside.  It 


nz  GOOI>-BY,  JACK 


ft  take  us  five  minutes  to  get  down 
to  the  wharf." 

To  the  wharf  we  drove.  Some  forty 
sad  wretches,  amid  their  mats,  blankets, 
and  luggage  of  various  sorts,  were  squat 
ting  on  the  stringer  piece.  The  Noeau 
had  just  arrived  and  was  f"*l""g  fast 
to  a  lighter  that  lay  between  her  and  the 
wharf.  A  Mr.  McVeigh,  the  superin 
tendent  of  the  srftk-tnrnt,  was  overseeing 
the  embarkation,  and  to  him  I  was  in 
troduced,  also  to  Dr.  Georges,  one  of  die 
Board  of  Health  physicians  whom  I  had 
already  met  at  KalihL  The  lepers  were 
a  woebegone  lot.  The  faces  erf  the  ma* 
joritjr  were  hidroos — too  horrible  for 
me  to  describe.  But  here  and  there  I 
notkrJ  fairly  good-looking  persons,  with 
no  apparent  signs  of  the  fell  disease  upon 
them.  One,  I  noticed,  a  little  white 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  in 

girl,  not  more  than  twelve,  with  blue 
e;.';5  .ir.i  c;.ie::  h.iir.  C::e  jheek.  h:  v- 
r,  showed  the  leprous  bloat.  QQ  my 
remarking  upon  the  sadness  of  her  alien 
situation  among  the  brown-skinned  af 
flicted  ones,  Doctor  Georges  replied:  — 
'n,  I  don't  know.  It's  a  happy  day 
in  her  life.  She  comes  from  KauaL 
Her  father  is  a  brute.  And  now  that  she 
has  developed  the  disease  she  is  going  to 
join  her  mother  at  the  settlement.  Her 
mother  was  sent  down  three  years  ago 
—  a  very  bad  case." 

"You  can't  always  tell  from  appear 
ances."  Mr.  McYcich  OphlMtfL  "Tr..i: 
man  there,  that  big  chap,  who  looks  the 
pink  of  condition,  with  nothing  the  matter 
with  him,  I  happen  to  know  has  a  per 
forating  ulcer  in  his  foot  and  another  in 
his  shoulder  blade.  Then  there  are 


ii2  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

others  —  there,  see  that  girl's  hand,  the 
one  who  is  smoking  the  cigarette.  See 
her  twisted  fingers.  That's  the  anaes 
thetic  form.  It  attacks  the  nerves.  You 
could  cut  her  fingers  off  with  a  dull  knife, 
or  rub  them  off  on  a  nutmeg-grater,  and 
she  would  not  experience  the  slightest 


sensation." 


:<Yes,  but  that  fine-looking  woman, 
there,"  I  persisted;  "surely,  surely, 
there  can't  be  anything  the  matter  with 
her.  She  is  too  glorious  and  gorgeous 
altogether." 

"A  sad  case,"  Mr.  McVeigh  answered 
over  his  shoulder,  already  turning  away 
to  walk  down  the  wharf  with  Kersdale. 

She  was  a  beautiful  woman,  and  she 
was  pure  Polynesian.  From  my  meagre 
knowledge  of  the  race  and  its  types  I 
could  not  but  conclude  that  she  had 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  113 

descended  from  old  chief  stock.  She 
could  not  have  been  more  than  twenty- 
three  or  four.  Her  lines  and  propor 
tions  were  magnificent,  and  she  was  just 
beginning  to  show  the  amplitude  of  the 
women  of  her  race. 

"It  was  a  blow  to  all  of  us,"  Dr. 
Georges  volunteered.  "She  gave  herself 
up  voluntarily,  too.  No  one  suspected. 
But  somehow  she  had  contracted  the 
disease.  It  broke  us  all  up,  I  assure 
you.  We've  kept  it  out  of  the  papers, 
though.  Nobody  but  us  and  her  family 
knows  what  has  become  of  her.  In  fact, 
if  you  were  to  ask  any  man  in  Honolulu, 
he'd  tell  you  it  was  his  impression  that 
she  was  somewhere  in  Europe.  It  was 
at  her  request  that  we've  been  so  quiet 
about  it.  Poor  girl,  she  has  a  lot  of 
pride." 


ii4  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

"But  who  is  she?"  I  asked.  "Cer 
tainly,  from  the  way  you  talk  about  her, 
she  must  be  somebody." 

"Did  you  ever  hear  of  Lucy  Mo- 
kunui  ?"  he  asked. 

"Lucy  Mokunui  ?"  I  repeated,  haunted 
by  some  familiar  association.  I  shook 
my  head.  "It  seems  to  me  I've  heard 
the  name,  but  I've  forgotten  it." 

"Never  heard  of  Lucy  Mokunui !  The 
Hawaiian  nightingale  !  I  beg  your  par 
don.  Of  course  you  are  a  malahini,1 
and  could  not  be  expected  to  know. 
Well,  Lucy  Mokunui  was  the  best  be 
loved  of  Honolulu  —  of  all  Hawaii,  for 
that  matter." 

"You  say  was,"  I  interrupted. 

"And  I  mean  it.  She  is  finished." 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders  pityingly. 

1  Malahini  —  newcomer. 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  115 

"A  dozen  haoles  —  I  beg  your  pardon, 
white  men  —  have  lost  their  hearts  to 
her  at  one  time  or  another.  And  I'm 
not  counting  in  the  ruck.  The  dozen  I 
refer  to  were  haoles  of  position  and  promi 
nence. 

"  She  could  have  married  the  son  of  the 
Chief  Justice  if  she'd  wanted  to.  You 
think  she's  beautiful,  eh  ?  But  you 
should  hear  her  sing.  Finest  native 
woman  singer  in  Hawaii  Nei.  Her 
throat  is  pure  silver  and  melted  sun 
shine.  We  adored  her.  She  toured  Amer 
ica  first  with  the  Royal  Hawaiian  Band. 
After  that  she  made  two  more  trips  on 
her  own  —  concert  work." 

"Oh!"  I  cried.  "I  remember  now. 
I  heard  her  two  years  ago  at  the  Boston 
Symphony.  So  that  is  she.  I  recognize 
her  now." 


u6  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

I  was  oppressed  by  a  heavy  sadness. 
Life  was  a  futile  thing  at  best.  A  short 
two  years  and  this  magnificent  creature, 
at  the  summit  of  her  magnificent  success, 
was  one  of  the  leper  squad  awaiting  de 
portation  to  Molokai.  Henley's  lines 
came  into  my  mind  : — 

"The  poor  old  tramp  explains  his  poor  old  ulcers; 
Life  is,  I  think,  a  blunder  and  a  shame." 

I  recoiled  from  my  own  future.  If 
this  awful  fate  fell  to  Lucy  Mokunui, 
what  might  not  my  lot  be  ?  —  or  any 
body's  lot  ?  I  was  thoroughly  aware 
that  in  life  we  are  in  the  midst  of  death 
—  but  to  be  in  the  midst  of  living  death, 
to  die  and  not  be  dead,  to  be  one  of  that 
draft  of  creatures  that  once  were  men,  aye, 
and  women,  like  Lucy  Mokunui,  the  epit 
ome  of  all  Polynesian  charms,  an  artist 
as  well,  and  well  beloved  of  men  — .  I 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  117 

am  afraid  I  must  have  betrayed  my 
perturbation,  for  Doctor  Georges  has 
tened  to  assure  me  that  they  were  very 
happy  down  in  the  settlement. 

It  was  all  too  inconceivably  mon 
strous.  I  could  not  bear  to  look  at  her. 
A  short  distance  away,  behind  a  stretched 
rope  guarded  by  a  policeman,  were  the 
lepers'  relatives  and  friends.  They  were 
not  allowed  to  come  near.  There  were 
no  last  embraces,  no  kisses  of  farewell. 
They  called  back  and  forth  to  one  an 
other  —  last  messages,  last  words  of  love, 
last  reiterated  instructions.  And  those 
behind  the  rope  looked  with  terrible  in 
tensity.  It  was  the  last  time  they  would 
behold  the  faces  of  their  loved  ones,  for 
they  were  the  living  dead,  being  carted 
away  in  the  funeral  ship  to  the  grave 
yard  of  Molokai. 


u8  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

Doctor  Georges  gave  the  command, 
and  the  unhappy  wretches  dragged  them 
selves  to  their  feet  and  under  their  bur 
dens  of  luggage  began  to  stagger  across 
the  lighter  and  aboard  the  steamer.  It 
was  the  funeral  procession.  At  once  the 
wailing  started  from  those  behind  the 
rope.  It  was  blood-curdling;  it  was 
heart-rending.  I  never  heard  such  woe, 
and  I  hope  never  to  again.  Kersdale 
and  McVeigh  were  still  at  the  other  end 
of  the  wharf,  talking  earnestly  —  poli 
tics,  of  course,  for  both  were  head-over- 
heels  in  that  particular  game.  When 
Lucy  Mokunui  passed  me,  I  stole  a  look 
at  her.  She  was  beautiful.  She  was 
beautiful  by  our  standards,  as  well  — 
one  of  those  rare  blossoms  that  occur  but 
once  in  generations.  And  she,  of  all 
women,  was  doomed  to  Molokai.  She 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  119 

walked  like  a  queen,  across  the  lighter, 
straight  on  board,  and  aft  on  the  open 
deck  where  the  lepers  huddled  by  the 
rail,  wailing,  now,  to  their  dear  ones  on 
shore. 

The  lines  were  cast  off,  and  the  Noeau 
began  to  move  away  from  the  wharf. 
The  wailing  increased.  Such  grief  and 
despair  !  I  was  just  resolving  that  never 
again  would  I  be  a  witness  to  the  sailing 
of  the  Noeau,  when  McVeigh  and  Kers- 
dale  returned.  The  latter's  eyes  were 
sparkling,  and  his  lips  could  not  quite 
hide  the  smile  of  delight  that  was  his. 
Evidently  the  politics  they  had  talked 
had  been  satisfactory.  The  rope  had 
been  flung  aside,  and  the  lamenting  rel 
atives  now  crowded  the  stringer  piece 
on  either  side  of  us. 

"That's  her  mother,"  Doctor  Georges 


120  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

whispered,  indicating  an  old  woman  next 
to  me,  who  was  rocking  back  and  forth 
and  gazing  at  the  steamer  rail  out  of 
tear-blinded  eyes.  I  noticed  that  Lucy 
Mokunui  was  also  wailing.  She  stopped 
abruptly  and  gazed  at  Kersdale.  Then 
she  stretched  forth  her  arms  in  that 
adorable,  sensuous  way  that  Olga  Nether- 
sole  has  of  embracing  an  audience.  And 
with  arms  outspread,  she  cried : 
"  Good-by,  Jack  !  Good-by  ! " 
He  heard  the  cry,  and  looked.  Never 
was  a  man  overtaken  by  more  crushing 
fear.  He  reeled  on  the  stringer  piece, 
his  face  went  white  to  the  roots  of  his 
hair,  and  he  seemed  to  shrink  and  wither 
away  inside  his  clothes.  He  threw  up 
his  hands  and  groaned,  "My  God  !  My 
God!"  Then  he  controlled  himself  by 
a  great  effort. 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  121 

"Good-by,  Lucy!  Good-by!"  he 
called. 

And  he  stood  there  on  the  wharf,  wav 
ing  his  hands  to  her  till  the  Noeau  was 
clear  away  and  the  faces  lining  her  after- 
rail  were  vague  and  indistinct. 

"I  thought  you  knew,"  said  McVeigh, 
who  had  been  regarding  him  curiously. 
"You,  of  all  men,  should  have  known. 
I  thought  that  was  why  you  were  here." 

"I  know  now,"  Kersdale  answered  with 
immense  gravity.  "Where's  the  car 
riage  ?" 

He  walked  rapidly  —  half-ran  —  to  it. 
I  had  to  half-run  myself  to  keep  up  with 
him. 

"Drive  to  Doctor  Hervey's,"  he  told 
the  driver.  "Drive  as  fast  as  you  can." 

He  sank  down  in  the  seat,  panting  and 
gasping.  The  pallor  of  his  face  had  in- 


122  GOOD-BY,  JACK 

creased.  His  lips  were  compressed  and 
the  sweat  was  standing  out  on  his  fore 
head  and  upper  lip.  He  seemed  in  some 
horrible  agony. 

"For  God's  sake,  Martin,  make  those 
horses  go!"  he  broke  out  suddenly. 
"Lay  the  whip  into  them!  —  do  you 
hear?  —  lay  the  whip  into  them!" 

"They'll  break,  sir,"  the  driver  re 
monstrated. 

"Let  them  break,"  Kersdale  answered. 
"I'll  pay  your  fine  and  square  you  with 
the  police.  Put  it  to  them.  That's 
right.  Faster!  Faster!" 

"And  I  never  knew,  I  never  knew," 
he  muttered,  sinking  back  in  the  seat  and 
with  trembling  hands  wiping  the  sweat 
away. 

The  carriage  was  bouncing,  swaying 
and  lurching  around  corners  at  such  a 


GOOD-BY,  JACK  123 

wild  pace  as  to  make  conversation  im 
possible.  Besides,  there  was  nothing  to 
say.  But  I  could  hear  him  muttering 
over  and  over,  "And  I  never  knew.  I 
never  knew." 


IV 

ALOHA   OE 


ALOHA   OE 

NEVER  are  there  such  departure* 
as  from  the  dock  at  Honolulu. 
The  great  transport  lay  with 
steam  up,  ready  to  pull  out.  A  thou 
sand  persons  were  on  her  decks ;  five 
thousand  stood  on  the  wharf.  Up  and 
down  the  long  gangway  passed  native 
princes  and  princesses,  sugar  kings  and 
the  high  officials  of  the  Territory.  Be 
yond,  in  long  lines,  kept  in  order  by 
the  native  police,  were  the  carriages  and 
motor  cars  of  the  Honolulu  aristocracy. 
On  the  wharf  the  Royal  Hawaiian  Band 
played  "Aloha  Oe,"  and  when  it  fin 
ished,  a  stringed  orchestra  of  native 
musicians  on  board  the  transport  took 

up  the  same  sobbing  strains,  the  native 
127 


128  ALOHA  OE 

woman  singer's  voice  rising  birdlike 
above  the  instruments  and  the  hubbub 
of  departure.  It  was  a  silver  reed, 
sounding  its  clear,  unmistakable  note 
in  the  great  diapason  of  farewell. 

Forward,  on  the  lower  deck,  the  rail 
was  lined  six  deep  with  khaki-clad 
young  boys,  whose  bronzed  faces  told 
of  three  years'  campaigning  under  the 
sun.  But  the  farewell  was  not  for  them. 
Nor  was  it  for  the  white-clad  captain 
on  the  lofty  bridge,  remote  as  the  stars, 
gazing  down  upon  the  tumult  beneath 
him.  Nor  was  the  farewell  for  the  young 
officers  farther  aft,  returning  from  the 
Philippines,  nor  for  the  white-faced,  cli 
mate-ravaged  women  by  their  sides. 
Just  aft  the  gangway,  on  the  promenade 
deck,  stood  a  score  of  United  States  Sen 
ators  with  their  wives  and  daughters  — 


ALOHA  OE  129 

the  Senatorial  junketing  party  that  for 
a  month  had  been  dined  and  wined, 
surfeited  with  statistics  and  dragged 
up  volcanic  hill  and  down  lava  dale  to 
behold  the  glories  and  resources  of 
Hawaii.  It  was  for  the  junketing  party 
that  the  transport  had  called  in  at  Hono 
lulu,  and  it  was  to  the  junketing  party 
that  Honolulu  was  saying  good-by. 

The  Senators  were  garlanded  and  be 
decked  with  flowers.  Senator  Jeremy 
Sambrooke's  stout  neck  and  portly 
bosom  were  burdened  with  a  dozen 
wreaths.  Out  of  this  mass  of  bloom 
and  blossom  projected  his  head  and  the 
greater  portion  of  his  freshly  sunburned 
and  perspiring  face.  He  thought  the 
flowers  an  abomination,  and  as  he 
looked  out  over  the  multitude  on  the 
wharf  it  was  with  a  statistical  eye  that 


130  ALOHA   OE 

saw  none  of  the  beauty,  but  that  peered 
into  the  labor  power,  the  factories,  the 
railroads,  and  the  plantations  that  lay 
back  of  the  multitude  and  which  the 
multitude  expressed.  He  saw  resources 
and  thought  development,  and  he  was 
too  busy  with  dreams  of  material  achieve 
ment  and  empire  to  notice  his  daugh 
ter  at  his  side,  talking  with  a  young 
fellow  in  a  natty  summer  suit  and 
straw  hat,  whose  eager  eyes  seemed 
only  for  her  and  never  left  her  face. 
Had  Senator  Jeremy  had  eyes  for  his 
daughter,  he  would  have  seen  that,  in 
place  of  the  young  girl  of  fifteen  he  had 
brought  to  Hawaii  a  short  month  be 
fore,  he  was  now  taking  away  with  him 
a  woman. 

Hawaii    has    a    ripening    climate,    and 
Dorothy   Sambrooke   had   been  exposed 


ALOHA  OE  131 

to  it  under  exceptionally  ripening  cir 
cumstances.  Slender,  pale,  with  blue 
eyes  a  trifle  tired  from  poring  over  the 
pages  of  books  and  trying  to  muddle 
into  an  understanding  of  life  —  such  she 
had  been  the  month  before.  But  now 
the  eyes  were  warm  instead  of  tired,  the 
cheeks  were  touched  with  the  sun,  and 
the  body  gave  the  first  hint  and  prom 
ise  of  swelling  lines.  During  that  month 
she  had  left  books  alone,  for  she  had 
found  greater  joy  in  reading  from  the 
book  of  life.  She  had  ridden  horses, 
climbed  volcanoes,  and  learned  surf 
swimming.  The  tropics  had  entered 
into  her  blood,  and  she  was  aglow  with 
the  warmth  and  color  and  sunshine. 
And  for  a  month  she  had  been  in  the 
"  company  of  a  man  —  Stephen  Knight, 
athlete,  surf-board  rider,  a  bronzed  god 


132  ALOHA  OE 

of  the  sea  who  bitted  the  crashing  break 
ers,  leaped  upon  their  backs,  and  rode 
them  in  to  shore. 

Dorothy  Sambrooke  was  unaware  of 
the  change.  Her  consciousness  was 
still  that  of  a  young  girl,  and  she  was 
surprised  and  troubled  by  Steve's  con 
duct  in  this  hour  of  saying  good-by. 
She  had  looked  upon  him  as  her  play 
fellow,  and  for  the  month  he  had  been 
her  playfellow;  but  now  he  was  not 
parting  like  a  playfellow.  He  talked 
excitedly  and  disconnectedly,  or  was 
silent,  by  fits  and  starts.  Sometimes 
he  did  not  hear  what  she  was  saying,  or 
if  he  did,  failed  to  respond  in  his  wonted 
manner.  She  was  perturbed  by  the 
way  he  looked  at  her.  She  had  not 
known  before  that  he  had  such  blazing 
eyes.  There  was  something  in  his  eyes 


ALOHA  OE  133 

that  was  terrifying.  She  could  not  face 
it,  and  her  own  eyes  continually  drooped 
before  it.  Yet  there  was  something 
alluring  about  it,  as  well,  and  she  con 
tinually  returned  to  catch  a  glimpse 
of  that  blazing,  imperious,  yearning 
something  that  she  had  never  seen  in 
human  eyes  before.  And  she  was  her 
self  strangely  bewildered  and  excited. 

The  transport's  huge  whistle  blew  a 
deafening  blast,  and  the  flower-crowned 
multitude  surged  closer  to  the  side  of 
the  dock.  Dorothy  Sambrooke's  fin 
gers  were  pressed  to  her  ears ;  and  as 
she  made  a  moue  of  distaste  at  the  out 
rage  of  sound,  she  noticed  again  the  im 
perious,  yearning  blaze  in  Steve's  eyes. 
He  was  not  looking  at  her,  but  at  her 
ears,  delicately  pink  and  transparent  in 
the  slanting  rays  of  the  afternoon  sun. 


134  ALOHA  OE 

Curious  and  fascinated,  she  gazed  at 
that  strange  something  in  his  eyes  until 
he  saw  that  he  had  been  caught.  She 
saw  his  cheeks  flush  darkly  and  heard 
him  utter  inarticulately.  He  was  em 
barrassed,  and  she  was  aware  of  em 
barrassment  herself.  Stewards  were  go 
ing  about  nervously  begging  shore-going 
persons  to  be  gone.  Steve  put  out  his 
hand.  When  she  felt  the  grip  of  the 
fingers  that  had  gripped  hers  a  thousand 
times  on  surf-boards  and  lava  slopes,  she 
heard  the  words  of  the  song  with  a  new 
understanding  as  they  sobbed  in  the  Ha 
waiian  woman's  silver  throat : 

"  Ka  halia  ko  aloha  kai  hiki  mai, 
Ke  hone  ae  nei  i  ku'u  manawa^ 
0  oe  no  ka'u  aloha 
A  loko  e  hana  nei" 

Steve  had  taught  her  air  and  words 


ALOHA  OE  135 

and  meaning  —  so  she  had  thought,  till 
this  instant ;  and  in  this  instant  of  the 
last  finger  clasp  and  warm  contact  of 
palms  she  divined  for  the  first  time  the 
real  meaning  of  the  song.  She  scarcely 
saw  him  go,  nor  could  she  note  him  on 
the  crowded  gangway,  for  she  was  deep 
in  a  memory  maze,  living  over  the  four 
weeks  just  past,  rereading  events  in  the 
light  of  revelation. 

When  the  Senatorial  party  had 
landed,  Steve  had  been  one  of  the  com 
mittee  of  entertainment.  It  was  he 
who  had  given  them  their  first  exhibi 
tion  of  surf  riding,  out  at  Waikiki 
Beach,  paddling  his  narrow  board  sea 
ward  until  he  became  a  disappearing 
speck,  and  then,  suddenly  reappearing, 
rising  like  a  sea-god  from  out  of  the 
welter  of  spume  and  churning  white  — 


136  ALOHA  OE 

rising  swiftly  higher  and  higher,  shoul 
ders  and  chest  and  loins  and  limbs,  until 
he  stood  poised  on  the  smoking  crest 
of  a  mighty,  mile-long  billow,  his  feet 
buried  in  the  flying  foam,  hurling  beach- 
ward  with  the  speed  of  an  express  train 
and  stepping  calmly  ashore  at  their  as 
tounded  feet.  That  had  been  her  first 
glimpse  of  Steve.  He  had  been  the 
youngest  man  on  the  committee,  a 
youth,  himself,  of  twenty.  He  had  not 
entertained  by  speechmaking,  nor  had 
he  shone  decoratively  at  receptions. 
It  was  in  the  breakers  at  Waikiki,  in  the 
wild  cattle  drive  on  Mauna  Kea,  and  in 
the  breaking  yard  of  the  Haleakala 
Ranch  that  he  had  performed  his  share 
of  the  entertaining. 

She  had    not  cared    for    the    intermi 
nable  statistics  and  eternal  speechmaking 


ALOHA  OE  137 

of  the  other  members  of  the  committee. 
Neither  had  Steve.  And  it  was  with 
Steve  that  she  had  stolen  away  from 
the  open-air  feast  at  Hamakua,  and 
from  Abe  Louisson,  the  coffee  planter, 
who  had  talked  coffee,  coffee,  nothing 
but  coffee,  for  two  mortal  hours.  It 
was  then,  as  they  rode  among  the  tree 
ferns,  that  Steve  had  taught  her  the 
words  of  "Aloha  Oe,"  the  song  that  had 
been  sung  to  the  visiting  Senators  at 
every  village,  ranch,  and  plantation  de 
parture. 

Steve  and  she  had  been  much  to 
gether  from  the  first.  He  had  been  her 
playfellow.  She  had  taken  possession 
of  him  while  her  father  had  been  occu 
pied  in  taking  possession  of  the  statistics 
of  the  island  territory.  She  was  too 
gentle  to  tyrannize  over  her  playfellow, 


138  ALOHA  OE 

yet  she  had  ruled  him  abjectly,  except 
when  in  canoe,  or  on  horse  or  surf-board, 
at  which  times  he  had  taken  charge 
and  she  had  rendered  obedience.  And 
now,  with  this  last  singing  of  the  song, 
as  the  lines  were  cast  off  and  the  big 
transport  began  backing  slowly  out 
from  the  dock,  she  knew  that  Steve 
was  something  more  to  her  than  play 
fellow. 

Five  thousand  voices  were  singing 
"Aloha  Oe, "  —  "My  love  be  with  you 
till  we  meet  again, "  —  and  in  that  first 
moment  of  known  love  she  realized  that 
she  and  Steve  were  being  torn  apart. 
When  would  they  ever  meet  again  ? 
He  had  taught  her  those  words  himself. 
She  remembered  listening  as  he  sang 
them  over  and  over  under  the  hau  tree 
at  Waikiki.  Had  it  been  prophesy  ? 


ALOHA  OE  139 

And  she  had  admired  his  singing, 
had  told  him  that  he  sang  with  such  ex 
pression.  She  laughed  aloud,  hysteri 
cally,  at  the  recollection.  With  such 
expression  !  —  when  he  had  been  pouring 
his  heart  out  in  his  voice.  She  knew 
now,  and  it  was  too  late.  Why  had  he 
not  spoken  ?  Then  she  realized  that 
girls  of  her  age  did  not  marry.  But 
girls  of  her  age  did  marry  —  in  Ha 
waii  —  was  her  instant  thought.  Ha 
waii  had  ripened  her  —  Hawaii,  where 
flesh  is  golden  and  where  all  women  are 
ripe  and  sun-kissed. 

Vainly  she  scanned  the  packed  mul 
titude  on  the  dock.  What  had  become 
of  him  ?  She  felt  that  she  could  pay 
any  price  for  one  more  glimpse  of  him, 
and  she  almost  hoped  that  some  mortal 
sickness  would  strike  the  lonely  cap- 


140  ALOHA  OE 

tain  on  the  bridge  and  delay  departure. 
For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  looked 
at  her  father  with  a  calculating  eye, 
and  as  she  did  she  noted  with  newborn 
fear  the  lines  of  will  and  determination. 
It  would  be  terrible  to  oppose  him. 
And  what  chance  would  she  have  in 
such  a  struggle  ?  But  why  had  Steve 
not  spoken  ?  Now  it  was  too  late. 
Why  had  he  not  spoken  under  the 
hau  tree  at  Waikiki  ? 
•  And  then,  with  a  great  sinking  of  the 
heart,  it  came  to  her  that  she  knew  why. 
What  was  it  she  had  heard  one  day  ? 
Oh,  yes,  it  was  at  Mrs.  Stanton's  tea, 
that  afternoon  when  the  ladies  of  the 
" Missionary  Crowd"  had  entertained 
the  ladies  of  the  Senatorial  party.  It 
was  Mrs.  Hodgkins,  the  tall  blond 
woman,  who  had  asked  the  question. 


ALOHA  OE  141 

The  scene  came  back  to  her  vividly  — 
the  broad  lanai,  the  tropic  flowers,  the 
noiseless  Asiatic  attendants,  the  hum  of 
the  voices  of  the  many  women,  and  the 
question  Mrs.  Hodgkins  had  asked  in 
the  group  next  to  her.  Mrs.  Hodgkins 
had  been  away  on  the  mainland  for 
years,  and  was  evidently  inquiring  after 
old  island  friends  of  her  maiden  days. 
"What  has  become  of  Susie  Maydwell  ?" 
was  the  question  she  had  asked.  "Oh, 
we  never  see  her  any  more ;  she  married 
Willie  Kupele,"  another  island  woman 
answered.  And  Senator  Behrend's  wife 
laughed  and  wanted  to  know  why 
matrimony  had  affected  Susie  Mayd- 
welPs  friendships.  "  Hapa-haole"  was 
the  answer;  "he  was  a  half-caste,  you 
know,  and  we  of  the  Islands  have  to 
think  about  our  children." 


142  ALOHA  OE 

Dorothy  turned  to  her  father,  re 
solved  to  put  it  to  the  test. 

"Papa,  if  Steve  ever  comes  to  the 
United  States,  mayn't  he  come  and  see 
us  some  time  ?" 

"Who?     Steve?" 

"Yes,  Stephen  Knight  —  you  know 
him.  You  said  good-by  to  him  not 
five  minutes  ago.  Mayn't  he,  if  he 
happens  to  be  in  the  United  States 
some  time,  come  and  see  us  ?" 

"Certainly  not,"  Jeremy  Sambrooke 
answered  shortly.  "Stephen  Knight 
is  a  hapa-haole  and  you  know  what  that 


means." 


"Oh,"  Dorothy  said  faintly,  while  she 
felt  a  numb  despair  creep  into  her  heart. 

Steve  was  not  a  hapa-haole  —  she 
knew  that;  but  she  did  know  that 
a  quarter-strain  of  tropic  sunshine 


ALOHA  OE  143 

streamed  in  his  veins,  and  she  knew  that 
that  was  sufficient  to  put  him  outside 
the  marriage  pale.  It  was  a  strange 
world.  There  was  the  Honorable  A. 
S.  Cleghorn,  who  had  married  a  dusky 
princess  of  the  Kamehameha  blood, 
yet  men  considered  it  an  honor  to  know 
him,  and  the  most  exclusive  women  of 
the  ultra-exclusive  "Missionary  Crowd" 
were  to  be  seen  at  his  afternoon  teas. 
And  there  was  Steve.  No  one  had  dis 
approved  of  his  teaching  her  to  ride  a 
surf-board,  nor  of  his  leading  her  by  the 
hand  through  the  perilous  places  of  the 
crater  of  Kilauea.  He  could  have  din 
ner  with  her  and  her  father,  dance  with 
her,  and  be  a  member  of  the  entertain 
ment  committee ;  but  because  there  was 
tropic  sunshine  in  his  veins  he  could 
not  marry  her. 


144  ALOHA  OE 

And  he  didn't  show  it.  One  had  to 
be  told  to  know.  And  he  was  so  good- 
looking.  The  picture  of  him  limned 
itself  on  her  inner  vision,  and  before 
she  was  aware  she  was  pleasuring  in  the 
memory  of  the  grace  of  his  magnificent 
body,  of  his  splendid  shoulders,  of  the 
power  in  him  that  tossed  her  lightly  on 
a  horse,  bore  her  safely  through  the 
thundering  breakers,  or  towed  her  at 
the  end  of  an  alpenstock  up  the  stern 
lava  crest  of  the  House  of  the  Sun. 
There  was  something  subtler  and  mys 
terious  that  she  remembered,  and  that 
she  was  even  then  just  beginning  to 
understand  —  the  aura  of  the  male 
creature  that  is  man,  all  man,  masculine 
man.  She  came  to  herself  with  a  shock 
of  shame  at  the  thoughts  she  had  been 
thinking.  Her  cheeks  were  dyed  with 


ALOHA  OE  145 

the  hot  blood  which  quickly  receded  and 
left  them  pale  at  the  thought  that  she 
would  never  see  him  again.  The  stem 
of  the  transport  was  already  out  in  the 
stream,  and  the  promenade  deck  was 
passing  abreast  of  the  end  of  the  dock. 

"There's  Steve  now,"  her  father  said. 
"Wave  good-by  to  him,  Dorothy." 

Steve  was  looking  up  at  her  with 
eager  eyes,  and  he  saw  in  her  face  what 
he  had  not  seen  before.  By  the  rush  of 
gladness  into  his  own  face  she  knew 
that  he  knew.  The  air  was  throbbing 
with  the  song  — 

My  love  to  you. 

My  love  be  with  you  till  we  meet  again. 

There  was  no  need  for  speech  to  tell 
their  story.  About  her,  passengers 
were  flinging  their  garlands  to  their 
friends  on  the  dock.  Steve  held  up  his 


146  ALOHA  OE 

hands  and  his  eyes  pleaded.  She 
slipped  her  own  garland  over  her  head, 
but  it  had  become  entangled  in  the 
string  of  Oriental  pearls  that  Mervin, 
an  elderly  sugar  king,  had  placed  around 
her  neck  when  he  drove  her  and  her 
father  down  to  the  steamer. 

She  fought  with  the  pearls  that  clung 
to  the  flowers.  The  transport  was 
moving  steadily  on.  Steve  was  already 
beneath  her.  This  was  the  moment. 
The  next  moment  and  he  would  be  past. 
She  sobbed,  and  Jeremy  Sambrooke 
glanced  at  her  inquiringly. 

"Dorothy!"   he   cried   sharply. 

She  deliberately  snapped  the  string, 
and,  amid  a  shower  of  pearls,  the 
flowers  fell  to  the  waiting  lover.  She 
gazed  at  him  until  the  tears  blinded  her 
and  she  buried  her  face  on  the  shoulder 


ALOHA  OE  147 

of  Jeremy  Sambrooke,  who  forgot  his 
beloved  statistics  in  wonderment  at 
girl  babies  that  insisted  on  growing  up. 
The  crowd  sang  on,  the  song  growing 
fainter  in  the  distance,  but  still  melting 
with  the  sensuous  love-languor  of 
Hawaii,  the  words  biting  into  her 
heart  like  acid  because  of  their  untruth. 

Aloha  oe,  Aloha  oe,  e  ke  onaona  no  ho  ika  lipo, 
A  fond  embrace,   ahoi   ae    au,    until    we   meet 
again. 


CHUN   AH    CHUN 


CHUN   AH    CHUN 

THERE  was  nothing  striking  in  the 
appearance  of  Chun  Ah  Chun. 
He  was  rather  undersized,  as  Chi 
nese  go,  and  the  Chinese  narrow  shoulders 
and  spareness  of  flesh  were  his.  The 
average  tourist,  casually  glimpsing  him 
on  the  streets  of  Honolulu,  would  have 
concluded  that  he  was  a  good-natured 
little  Chinese,  probably  the  proprietor 
of  a  prosperous  laundry  or  tailorshop. 
In  so  far  as  good  nature  and  prosperity 
went,  the  judgment  would  be  correct, 
though  beneath  the  mark ;  for  Ah  Chun 
was  as  good-natured  as  he  was  prosper 
ous,  and  of  the  latter  no  man  knew  a 
tithe  the  tale.  It  was  well  known  that 
he  was  enormously  wealthy,  but  in  his 


152  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

case  "enormous"  was  merely  the  symbol 
for  the  unknown. 

Ah  Chun  had  shrewd  little  eyes,  black 
and  beady  and  so  very  little  that  they 
were  like  gimlet-holes.  But  they  were 
wide  apart,  and  they  sheltered  under  a 
forehead  that  was  patently  the  forehead 
of  a  thinker.  For  Ah  Chun  had  his 
problems,  and  had  had  them  all  his  life. 
—  Not  that  he  ever  worried  over  them. 
He  was  essentially  a  philosopher,  and 
whether  as  coolie,  or  multi-millionnaire  and 
master  of  many  men,  his  poise  of  soul  was 
the  same.  He  lived  always  in  the  high 
equanimity  of  spiritual  repose,  unde 
terred  by  good  fortune,  unruffled  by  ill 
fortune.  All  things  went  well  with  him, 
whether  they  were  blows  from  the  over 
seer  in  the  cane  field  or  a  slump  in  the 
price  of  sugar  when  he  owned  those  cane 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  153 

fields  himself.  Thus,  from  the  steadfast 
rock  of  his  sure  content  he  mastered  prob 
lems  such  as  are  given  to  few  men  to 
consider,  much  less  to  a  Chinese  peasant. 
He  was  precisely  that  —  a  Chinese 
peasant,  born  to  labor  in  the  fields  all  his 
days  like  a  beast,  but  fated  to  escape 
from  the  fields  like  the  prince  in  a  fairy 
tale.  Ah  Chun  did  not  remember  his 
father,  a  small  farmer  in  a  district  not 
far  from  Canton ;  nor  did  he  remember 
much  of  his  mother,  who  had  died  when 
he  was  six.  But  he  did  remember  his 
respected  uncle,  Ah  Kow,  for  him  had 
he  served  as  a  slave  from  his  sixth  year 
to  his  twenty-fourth.  It  was  then  that 
he  escaped  by  contracting  himself  as  a 
coolie  to  labor  for  three  years  on  the  sugar 
plantations  of  Hawaii  for  fifty  cents  a 
day. 


154  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

Ah  Chun  was  observant.  He  per 
ceived  little  details  that  not  one  man  in 
a  thousand  ever  noticed.  Three  years 
he  worked  in  the  field,  at  the  end  of  which 
time  he  knew  more  about  cane-growing 
than  the  overseers  or  even  the  superin 
tendent,  while  the  superintendent  would 
have  been  astounded  at  the  knowledge 
the  weazened  little  coolie  possessed  of 
the  reduction  processes  in  the  mill.  But 
Ah  Chun  did  not  study  only  sugar  pro 
cesses.  He  studied  to  find  out  how  men 
came  to  be  owners  of  sugar  mills  and 
plantations.  One  judgment  he  achieved 
early,  namely,  that  men  did  not  become 
rich  from  the  labor  of  their  own  hands. 
He  knew,  for  he  had  labored  for  a  score 
of  years  himself.  The  men  who  grew 
rich  did  so  from  the  labor  of  the  hands  of 
others.  That  man  was  richest  who  had 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  155 

the  greatest  number  of  his  fellow-creatures 
toiling  for  him. 

So,  when  his  term  of  contract  was  up, 
Ah  Chun  invested  his  savings  in  a  small 
importing  store,  going  into  partnership 
with  one,  Ah  Yung.  The  firm  ultimately 
became  the  great  one  of  "Ah  Chun  & 
Ah  Yung,"  which  handled  anything  from 
India  silks  and  ginseng  to  guano  islands 
and  blackbird  brigs.  In  the  meantime, 
Ah  Chun  hired  out  as  cook.  He  was  a 
good  cook,  and  in  three  years  he  was  the 
highest-paid  chef  in  Honolulu.  His 
career  was  assured,  and  he  was  a  fool  to 
abandon  it,  as  Dantin,  his  employer, 
told  him ;  but  Ah  Chun  knew  his  own 
mind  best,  and  for  knowing  it  was  called 
a  triple-fool  and  given  a  present  of  fifty 
dollars  over  and  above  the  wages  due  him. 

The  firm  of  Ah  Chun  &  Ah  Yung  was 


1 56  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

prospering.  There  was  no  need  for  Ah 
Chun  longer  to  be  a  cook.  There  were 
boom  times  in  Hawaii.  Sugar  was  being 
extensively  planted,  and  labor  was 
needed.  Ah  Chun  saw  the  chance,  and 
went  into  the  labor-importing  business. 
He  brought  thousands  of  Cantonese 
coolies  into  Hawaii,  and  his  wealth  be 
gan  to  grow.  He  made  investments. 
His  beady  black  eyes  saw  bargains  where 
other  men  saw  bankruptcy.  He  bought 
a  fish-pond  for  a  song,  which  later  paid 
five  hundred  per  cent  and  was  the  open 
ing  wedge  by  which  he  monopolized  the 
fish  market  of  Honolulu.  He  did  not 
talk  for  publication,  nor  figure  in  poli 
tics,  nor  play  at  revolutions,  but  he  fore 
cast  events  more  clearly  and  farther 
ahead  than  did  the  men  who  engineered 
them.  In  his  mind's  eye  he  saw  Hono- 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  157 

lulu  a  modern,  electric-lighted  city  at  a 
time  when  it  straggled,  unkempt  and 
sand-tormented,  over  a  barren  reef  of 
uplifted  coral  rock.  So  he  bought  land. 
He  bought  land  from  merchants  who 
needed  ready  cash,  from  impecunious 
natives,  from  riotous  traders'  sons,  from 
widows  and  orphans  and  the  lepers  de 
ported  to  Molokai ;  and,  somehow,  as 
the  years  went  by,  the  pieces  of  land  he 
had  bought  proved  to  be  needed  for  ware 
houses,  or  office  buildings,  or  hotels.  He 
leased,  and  rented,  sold  and  bought,  and 
resold  again. 

But  there  were  other  things  as  well. 
He  put  his  confidence  and  his  money  into 
Parkinson,  the  renegade  captain  whom 
nobody  would  trust.  And  Parkinson 
sailed  away  on  mysterious  voyages  in 
the  little  Vega.  Parkinson  was  taken 


IS8  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

care  of  until  he  died,  and  years  after 
ward  Honolulu  was  astonished  when  the 
news  leaked  out  that  the  Drake  and  Acorn 
guano  islands  had  been  sold  to  the  Brit 
ish  Phosphate  Trust  for  three-quarters 
of  a  million.  Then  there  were  the  fat, 
lush  days  of  King  Kalakaua,  when  Ah 
Chun  paid  three  hundred  thousand  dol 
lars  for  the  opium  license.  If  he  paid  a 
third  of  a  million  for  the  drug  monopoly, 
the  investment  was  nevertheless  a  good 
one,  for  the  dividends  bought  him  the 
Kalalau  Plantation,  which,  in  turn,  paid 
him  thirty  per  cent  for  seventeen  years 
and  was  ultimately  sold  by  him  for  a 
million  and  a  half. 

It  was  under  the  Kaemhamehas,  long 
before,  that  he  had  served  his  own  coun 
try  as  Chinese  Consul --a  position  that 
was  not  altogether  unlucrative ;  and  it 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  159 

was  under  Kamehameha  IV  that  he 
changed  his  citizenship,  becoming  an 
Hawaiian  subject  in  order  to  marry  Stella 
Allendale,  herself  a  subject  of  the  brown- 
skinned  king,  though  more  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood  ran  in  her  veins  than  of 
Polynesian.  In  fact,  the  random  breeds 
in  her  were  so  attenuated  that  they  were 
valued  at  eighths  and  sixteenths.  In  the 
latter  proportion  was  the  blood  of  her 
great-grandmother,  Paahao  —  the  Prin 
cess  Paahao,  for  she  came  of  the  royal 
line.  Stella  Allendale's  great-grand 
father  had  been  a  Captain  Blunt,  an 
English  adventurer  who  took  service 
under  Kamehameha  I  and  was  made  a 
tabu  chief  himself.  Her  grandfather  had 
been  a  New  Bedford  whaling  captain, 
while  through  her  own  father  had  been 
introduced  a  remote  blend  of  Italian  and 


160  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

Portuguese  which  had  been  grafted  upon 
his  own  English  stock.  Legally  a  Ha 
waiian,  Ah  Chun's  spouse  was  more  of 
any  one  of  three  other  nationalities. 

And  into  this  conglomerate  of  the  races, 
Ah  Chun  introduced  the  Mongolian  mix 
ture.  Thus,  his  children  by  Mrs.  Ah 
Chun  were  one  thirty-second  Polynesian 
one-sixteenth  Italian,  one-sixteenth  Por 
tuguese,  one-half  Chinese,  and  eleven 
thirty-seconds  English  and  American.  It 
might  well  be  that  Ah  Chun  would  have 
refrained  from  matrimony  could  he  have 
foreseen  the  wonderful  family  that  was 
to  spring  from  this  union.  It  was  won 
derful  in  many  ways.  First,  there  was 
its  size.  There  were  fifteen  sons  and 
daughters,  mostly  daughters.  The  sons 
had  come  first,  three  of  them,  and  then 
had  followed,  in  unswerving  sequence,  a 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  161 

round  dozen  of  girls.  The  blend  of  the 
races  was  excellent.  Not  alone  fruitful 
did  it  prove,  for  the  progeny,  without 
exception,  was  healthy  and  without  blem 
ish.  But  the  most  amazing  thing  about 
the  family  was  its  beauty.  All  the  girls 
were  beautiful -- delicately,  ethereally 
beautiful.  Mama  Ah  Chun's  rotund 
lines  seemed  to  modify  papa  Ah  Chun's 
lean  angles,  so  that  the  daughters  were 
willowy  without  being  lathy,  round-mus 
cled  without  being  chubby.  In  every 
feature  of  every  face  were  haunting  remi 
niscences  of  Asia,  all  manipulated  over 
and  disguised  by  old  England,  New  Eng 
land,  and  South  of  Europe.  No  observer, 
without  information,  would  have  guessed 
the  heavy  Chinese  strain  in  their  veins  ;  nor 
could  any  observer,  after  being  informed, 
fail  to  note  immediately  the  Chinese  traces. 

M 


162  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

As  beauties,  the  Ah  Chun  girls  were 
something  new.  Nothing  like  them  had 
been  seen  before.  They  resembled  noth 
ing  so  much  as  they  resembled  one 
another,  and  yet  each  girl  was  sharply 
individual.  There  was  no  mistaking  one 
for  another.  On  the  other  hand,  Maud, 
who  was  blue-eyed  and  yellow-haired, 
would  remind  one  instantly  of  Henrietta, 
an  olive  brunette  with  large,  languishing 
dark  eyes  and  hair  that  was  blue-black. 
The  hint  of  resemblance  that  ran  through 
them  all,  reconciling  every  differentia 
tion,  was  Ah  Chun's  contribution.  He 
had  furnished  the  groundwork  upon 
which  had  been  traced  the  blended  pat 
terns  of  the  races.  He  had  furnished  the 
slim-boned  Chinese  frame,  upon  which 
had  been  builded  the  delicacies  and  sub 
tleties  of  Saxon,  Latin,  and  Polynesian  flesh. 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  163 

Mrs.  Ah  Chun  had  ideas  of  her  own  to 
which  Ah  Chun  gave  credence,  though 
never  permitting  them  expression  when 
they  conflicted  with  his  own  philosophic 
calm.  She  had  been  used  all  her  life  to 
living  in  European  fashion.  Very  well. 
Ah  Chun  gave  her  a  European  mansion. 
Later,  as  his  sons  and  daughters  grew 
able  to  advise,  he  built  the  bungalow,  a 
spacious,  rambling  affair,  as  unpreten 
tious  as  it  was  magnificent.  Also,  as 
time  went  by,  there  arose  a  mountain 
house  on  Tantalus,  to  which  the  family 
could  flee  when  the  "sick  wind"  blew 
from  the  south.  And  at  Waikiki  he 
built  a  beach  residence  on  an  extensive 
site  so  well  chosen  that  later  on,  when  the 
United  States  government  condemned 
it  for  fortification  purposes,  an  immense 
sum  accompanied  the  condemnation.  In 


164  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

all  his  houses  were  billiard  and  smoking 
rooms  and  guest  rooms  galore,  for  Ah 
Chun's  wonderful  progeny  was  given 
to  lavish  entertainment.  The  furnishing 
was  extravagantly  simple.  Kings'  ran 
soms  were  expended  without  display  — 
thanks  to  the  educated  tastes  of  the 
progeny. 

Ah  Chun  had  been  liberal  in  the  matter 
of  education.  "Never  mind  expense," 
he  had  argued  in  the  old  days  with  Par 
kinson  when  that  slack  mariner  could 
see  no  reason  for  making  the  Vega  sea 
worthy;  "you  sail  the  schooner,  I  pay 
the  bills."  And  so  with  his  sons  and 
daughters.  It  had  been  for  them  to  get 
the  education  and  never  mind  the  ex 
pense.  Harold,  the  eldest-born,  had  gone 
to  Harvard  and  Oxford;  Albert  and 
Charles  had  gone  through  Yale  in  the 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  165 

same  classes.  And  the  daughters,  from 
the  eldest  down,  had  undergone  their 
preparation  at  Mills  Seminary  in  Cali 
fornia  and  passed  on  to  Vassar,  Welles- 
ley,  or  Bryn  Mawr.  Several,  having  so 
desired,  had  had  the  finishing  touches 
put  on  in  Europe.  And  from  all  the 
world  Ah  Chun's  sons  and  daughters 
returned  to  him  to  suggest  and  advise  in 
the  garnishment  of  the  chaste  magnifi 
cence  of  his  residences.  Ah  Chun  him 
self  preferred  the  voluptuous  glitter  of 
Oriental  display;  but  he  was  a  phil 
osopher,  and  he  clearly  saw  that  his 
children's  tastes  were  correct  according 
to  Western  standards. 

Of  course,  his  children  were  not  known 
as  the  Ah  Chun  children.  As  he  had 
evolved  from  a  coolie  laborer  to  a  multi- 
millionnaire,  so  had  his  name  evolved. 


166  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

Mama  Ah  Chun  had  spelled  it  A'Chun, 
but  her  wiser  offspring  had  elided  the 
apostrophe  and  spelled  it  Achun.  Ah 
Chun  did  not  object.  The  spelling  of  his 
name  interfered  no  whit  with  his  com 
fort  nor  his  philosophic  calm.  Besides,  he 
was  not  proud.  But  when  his  children 
arose  to  ;the  height  of  a  starched  shirt, 
a  stiff  collar,  and  a  frock  coat,  they  did 
interfere  with  his  comfort  and  calm. 
Ah  Chun  would  have  none  of  it.  He 
preferred  the  loose-flowing  robes  of 
China,  and  neither  could  they  cajole  nor 
bully  him  into  making  the  change.  They 
tried  both  courses,  and  in  the  latter  one 
failed  especially  disastrously.  They  had 
not  been  to  America  for  nothing.  They 
j  had  learned  the  virtues  of  the  boycott  as 
i  employed  by  organized  labor,  and  he, 
their  father,  Chun  Ah  Chun,  they  boy- 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  167 

cotted  in  his  own  house,  Mama  Achun 
aiding  and  abetting.  But  Ah  Chun  him-  ^ 
self,  while  unversed  in  Western  culture, 
was  thoroughly  conversant  with  Western 
labor  conditions.  An  extensive  employer 
of  labor  himself,  he  knew  how  to  cope 
with  its  tactics.  Promptly  he  imposed 
a  lockout  on  his  rebellious  progeny  and 
erring  spouse.  He  discharged  his  scores 
of  servants,  locked  up  his  stables,  closed 
his  houses,  and  went  to  live  in  the  Royal 
Hawaiian  Hotel,  in  which  enterprise  he 
happened  to  be  the  heaviest  stockholder. 
The  family  fluttered  distractedly  on  visits 
about  with  friends,  while  Ah  Chun 
calmly  managed  his  many  affairs,  smoked 
his  long  pipe  with  the  tiny  silver  bowl, 
and  pondered  the  problem  of  his  won 
derful  progeny. 

This  problem  did  not  disturb  his  calm. 


168  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

He  knew  in  his  philosopher's  soul  that 
when  it  was  ripe  he  would  solve  it.  In 
the  meantime  he  enforced  the  lesson  that, 
complacent  as  he  might  be,  he  was  never 
theless  the  absolute  dictator  of  the 
Achun  destinies.  The  family  held  out 
for  a  week,  then  returned,  along  with 
Ah  Chun  and  the  many  servants  to 
occupy  the  bungalow  once  more.  And 
thereafter  no  question  was  raised  when 
Ah  Chun  elected  to  enter  his  brilliant 
drawing-room  in  blue  silk  robe,  wadded 
slippers,  and  black  silk  skull-cap  with 
red  button  peak,  or  when  he  chose  to 
draw  at  his  slender-stemmed  silver- 
bowled  pipe  among  the  cigarette-  and 
cigar-smoking  officers  and  civilians  on 
the  broad  verandas  or  in  the  smoking 
room. 

Ah  Chun  occupied  a  unique  position 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  169 

in  Honolulu.  Though  he  did  not  appear 
in  society,  he  was  eligible  anywhere. 
Except  among  the  Chinese  merchants  of 
the  city,  he  never  went  out;  but  he  re 
ceived,  and  he  was  always  the  centre  of 
his  household  and  the  head  of  his  table. 
Himself  peasant-born  Chinese,  he  pre 
sided  over  an  atmosphere  of  culture  and 
refinement  second  to  none  in  all  the 
islands.  Nor  were  there  any  in  all  the 
islands  too  proud  to  cross  his  threshold 
and  enjoy  his  hospitality.  First  of  all, 
the  Achun  bungalow  was  of  irreproach 
able  tone.  Next,  Ah  Chun  was  a  power. 
And,  finally,  Ah  Chun  was  a  moral  para 
gon  and  an  honest  business  man.  De 
spite  the  fact  that  business  morality 
was  higher  than  on  the  mainland, 
Ah  Chun  outshone  the  business  men  of 
Honolulu  in  the  scrupulous  rigidity  of 


170  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

his  honesty.  It  was  a  saying  that  his 
word  was  as  good  as  his  bond.  His 
signature  was  never  needed  to  bind  him. 
He  never  broke  his  word.  Twenty  years 
after  Hotchkiss,  of  Hotchkiss,  Morterson 
Company,  died,  they  found  among  mis 
laid  papers  a  memorandum  of  a  loan  of 
thirty  thousand  dollars  to  Ah  Chun.  It 
had  been  incurred  when  Ah  Chun  was 
privy  counsellor  to  Kamehameha  II.  In 
the  bustle  and  confusion  of  those  hey 
day,  money-making  times,  the  affair  had 
slipped  Ah  Chun's  mind.  There  was  no 
note,  no  legal  claim  against  him,  but  he 
settled  in  full  with  the  Hotchkiss'  Estate, 
voluntarily  paying  a  compound  interest 
that  dwarfed  the  principal.  Likewise, 
when  he  verbally  guaranteed  the  disas 
trous  Kakiku  Ditch  Scheme,  at  a  time 
when  the  least  sanguine  did  not  dream 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  171 

a  guarantee  necessary-- "Signed  his 
check  for  two  hundred  thousand  without 
a  quiver,  gentlemen,  without  a  quiver," 
was  the  report  of  the  secretary  of  the 
defunct  enterprise,  who  had  been  sent 
on  the  forlorn  hope  of  finding  out  Ah 
Chun's  intentions.  And  on  top  of  the 
many  similar  actions  that  were  true  of 
his  word,  there  was  scarcely  a  man  of 
repute  in  the  islands  that  at  one  time  or 
another  had  not  experienced  the  helping 
financial  hand  of  Ah  Chun. 

So  it  was  that  Honolulu  watched  his 
wonderful  family  grow  up  into  a  perplexing 
problem  and  secretly  sympathized  with 
him,  for  it  was  beyond  any  of  them  to 
imagine  what  he  was  going  to  do  with  it. 
But  Ah  Chun  saw  the  problem  more 
clearly  than  they.  No  one  knew  as  he 
knew  the  extent  to  which  he  was  an  alien 


172  CHUN   AH  CHUN 

in  his  family.  His  own  family  did  not 
guess  it.  He  saw  that  there  was  no 
place  for  him  amongst  this  marvellous  seed 
of  his  loins,  and  he  looked  forward  to 
his  declining  years  and  knew  that  he 
would  grow  more  and  more  alien.  He 
did  not  understand  his  children.  Their 
conversation  was  of  things  that  did  not 
interest  him  and  about  which  he  knew 
nothing.  The  culture  of  the  West  had 
passed  him  by.  He  was  Asiatic  to 
the  last  fibre,  which  meant  that  he  was 
heathen.  Their  Christianity  was  to  him 
.  so  much  nonsense.  But  all  this  he  would 

t     x 

have  ignored  as  extraneous  and  irrelevant, 
could  he  have  but  understood  the  young 
people  themselves.  When  Maud,  for  in 
stance,  told  him  that  the  housekeeping 
bills  for  the  month  were  thirty  thousand 
—  that  he  understood,  as  he  understood 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  173 

Albert's  request  for  five  thousand  with 
which  to  buy  the  schooner  yacht  Muriel 
and  become  a  member  of  the  Hawaiian 
Yacht  Club.  But  it  was  their  remoter, 
complicated  desires  and  mental  processes 
that  obfuscated  him.  He  was  not  slow  in 
learning  that  the  mind  of  each  son  and 
daughter  was  a  secret  labyrinth  which 
he  could  never  hope  to  tread.  Always  he 
came  upon  the  wall  that  divides  East  from 
West.  Their  souls  were  inaccessible  to 
him,  and  by  the  same  token  he  knew  that 
his  soul  was  inaccessible  to  them. 

Besides,  as  the  years  came  upon  him, 
he  found  himself  harking  back  more  and 
more  to  his  own  kind.  The  reeking  smells 
of  the  Chinese  quarter  were  spicy  to  him. 
He  sniffed  them  with  satisfaction  as  he 
passed  along  the  street,  for  in  his  mind 
they  carried  him  back  to  the  narrow 


174  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

tortuous  alleys  of  Canton  swarming  with 
life  and  movement.  He  regretted  that 
he  had  cut  off  his  queue  to  please  Stella 
Allendale  in  the  prenuptial  days,  and  he 
seriously  considered  the  advisability  of 
shaving  his  crown  and  growing  a  new  one. 
The  dishes  his  highly  paid  chef  concocted 
for  him  failed  to  tickle  his  reminiscent 
palate  in  the  way  that  the  weird  messes 
did  in  the  stuffy  restaurant  down  in  the 
Chinese  quarter.  He  enjoyed  vastly  more 
a  half-hour's  smoke  and  chat  with  two  or 
three  Chinese  chums,  than  to  preside  at 
the  lavish  and  elegant  dinners  for  which  his 
bungalow  was  famed,  where  the  pick  of 
the  Americans  and  Europeans  sat  at  the 
long  table,  men  and  women  on  equality, 
the  women  with  jewels  that  blazed  in 
the  subdued  light  against  white  necks 
and  arms,  the  men  in  evening  dress,  and 


CHUN  AH   CHUN  175 

all  chattering  and  laughing  over  topics 
and  witticisms  that,  while  they  wrere  not 
exactly  Greek  to  him,  did  not  interest  him 
nor  entertain. 

But  it  was  not  merely  his  alienness  and 
his  growing  desire  to  return  to  his  Chinese 
flesh-pots  that  constituted  the  problem. 
There  was  also  his  wealth.  He  had 
looked  forward  to  a  placid  old  age.  He 
had  worked  hard.  His  reward  should 
have  been  peace  and  repose.  But  he 
knew  that  with  his  immense  fortune  peace 
and  repose  could  not  possibly  be  his. 
Already  there  were  signs  and  omens.  He 
had  seen  similar  troubles  before.  There 
was  his  old  employer,  Dantin,  whose 
children  had  wrested  from  him,  by  due 
process  of  law,  the  management  of  his 
property,  having  the  Court  appoint 
guardians  to  administer  it  for  him.  Ah 


176  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

Chun  knew,  and  knew  thoroughly  well, 
that  had  Dantin  been  a  poor  man,  it 
would  have  been  found  that  he  could 
quite  rationally  manage  his  own  affairs. 
And  old  Dantin  had  had  only  three 
children  and  half  a  million,  while  he, 
Chun  Ah  Chun,  had  fifteen  children  and  no 
one  but  himself  knew  how  many  millions. 

"Our  daughters  are  beautiful  women," 
he  said  to  his  wife,  one  evening.  "There 
are  many  young  men.  The  house  is 
always  full  of  young  men.  My  cigar 
bills  are  very  heavy.  Why  are  there  no 
marriages  ? " 

Mama  Achun  shrugged  her  shoulders 
and  waited. 

"Women  are  women  and  men  are  men 
—  it  is  strange  there  are  no  marriages. 
Perhaps  the  young  men  do  not  like  our 
daughters." 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  177 

"Ah,  they  like  them  well  enough," 
Mama  Achun  answered;  "but  you  see, 
they  cannot  forget  that  you  are  your 
daughters'  father." 

"Yet  you  forgot  who  my  father  was," 
Ah  Chun  said  gravely.  "All  you  asked 
was  for  me  to  cut  off  my  queue." 

"The  young  men  are  more  particular 
than  I  was,  I  fancy." 

"What  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the 
world  ?"  Ah  Chun  demanded  with  abrupt 
irrelevance. 

Mama  Achun  pondered  for  a  moment, 
then  replied:  "God." 

He  nodded.  "There  are  gods  and  gods. 
Some  are  paper,  some  are  wood,  some  are 
bronze.  I  use  a  small  one  in  the  office 
for  a  paper-weight.  In  the  Bishop  Mu 
seum  are  many  gods  of  coral  rock  and 
lavastone." 


178  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

"But  there  is  only  one  God,"  she 
announced  decisively,  stiffening  her  am 
ple  frame  argumentatively. 

Ah  Chun  noted  the  danger  signal  and 
sheered  off. 

"What  is  greater  than  God,  then  ?" 
he  asked.  "I  will  tell  you.  It  is  money. 
In  my  time  I  have  had  dealings  with 
Jews  and  Christians,  Mohammedans  and 
Buddhists,  and  with  little  black  men  from 
the  Solomons  and  New  Guinea  who 
carried  their  god  about  them,  wrapped 
in  oiled  paper.  They  possessed  various 
gods,  these  men,  but  they  all  worshipped 
money.  There  is  that  Captain  Higginson. 
He  seems  to  like  Henrietta." 

"He  will  never  marry  her,"  retorted 
Mama  Achun.  "He  will  be  an  admiral 
before  he  dies  — " 

"A    rear    admiral,"    Ah    Chun    inter- 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  179 

polated.  "Yes,  I  know.  That  is  the 
way  they  retire. 

"His  family  in  the  United  States  is  a 
high  one.  They  would  not  like  it  if  he 
married  ...  if  he  did  not  marry  an 
American  girl." 

Ah  Chun  knocked  the  ashes  out  of 
his  pipe  and  thoughtfully  refilled  the 
silver  bowl  with  a  tiny  pleget  of  tobacco. 
He  lighted  it  and  smoked  it  out  before  he 
spoke. 

"Henrietta  is  the  oldest  girl.  The 
day  she  marries  I  will  give  her  three 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  That  will 
fetch  that  Captain  Higginson  and  his 
high  family  along  with  him.  Let  the 
word  go  out  to  him.  I  leave  it  to  you." 

And  Ah  Chun  sat  and  smoked  on,  and 
in  the  curling  smoke-wreaths  he  saw 
take  shape  the  face  and  figure  of  Toy 


i8o  CHUN  AH   CHUN 

Shuey  -  -  Toy  Shuey,  the  maid  of  all 
work  in  his  uncle's  house  in  the  Cantonese 
village,  whose  work  was  never  done  and 
who  received  for  a  whole  year's  work  one 
dollar.  And  he  saw  his  youthful  self 
arise  in  the  curling  smoke,  his  youthful 
self  who  had  toiled  eighteen  years  in 
his  uncle's  field  for  little  more.  And 
now  he,  Ah  Chun,  the  peasant,  dowered 
his  daughter  with  three  hundred  thousand 
years  of  such  toil.  And  she  was  but  one 
daughter  of  a  dozen.  He  was  not  elated 
at  the  thought.  It  struck  him  that  it 
was  a  funny,  whimsical  world,  and  he 
chuckled  aloud  and  startled  Mama  Achun 
from  a  revery  which  he  knew  lay  deep  in 
the  hidden  crypts  of  her  being  where  he 
had  never  penetrated. 

But  Ah  Chun's  word  went  forth,  as  a 
whisper,   and   Captain  Higginson  forgot 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  181 

his  rear-admiralship  and  his  high  family 
and  took  to  wife  three  hundred  thousand 
dollars  and  a  refined  and  cultured  girl  who 
was  one  thirty-second  Polynesian,  one- 
sixteenth  Italian,  one-sixteenth  Portu 
guese,  eleven  thirty-seconds  English  and 
Yankee,  and  one-half  Chinese. 

Ah  Chun's  munificence  had  its  effect. 
His  daughters  became  suddenly  eligible 
and  desirable.  Clara  was  the  next,  but 
when  the  Secretary  of  the  Territory 
formally  proposed  for  her,  Ah  Chun 
informed  him  that  he  must  await  his  turn, 
that  Maud  was  the  oldest  and  that  she 
must  be  married  first.  It  was  shrewd 
policy.  The  whole  family  was  made 
vitally  interested  in  marrying  off  Maud, 
which  it  did  in  three  months,  to  Ned 
Humphreys,  the  United  States  immigra 
tion  commissioner.  Both  he  and  Maud 


182  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

complained,  for  the  dowry  was  only  two 
hundred  thousand.  Ah  Chun  explained 
that  his  initial  generosity  had  been  to 
break  the  ice,  and  that  after  that  his 
daughters  could  not  expect  otherwise 
than  to  go  more  cheaply. 

Clara  followed  Maud,  and  thereafter, 
for  a  space  of  two  years,  there  was  a 
continuous  round  of  weddings  in  the 
bungalow.  In  the  meantime  Ah  Chun 
had  not  been  idle.  Investment  after 
investment  was  called  in.  He  sold  out 
his  interests  in  a  score  of  enterprises, 
and  step  by  step,  so  as  not  to  cause  a 
slump  in  the  market,  he  disposed  of  his 
large  holdings  in  real  estate.  Toward 
the  last  he  did  precipitate  a  slump  and 
sold  at  sacrifice.  What  caused  this  haste 
were  the  squalls  he  saw  already  rising 
above  the  horizon.  By  the  time  Lucille 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  183 

was  married,  echoes  of  bickerings  and 
jealousies  were  already  rumbling  in  his 
ears.  The  air  was  thick  with  schemes 
and  counter  schemes  to  gain  his  favor  and 
to  prejudice  him  against  one  or  another 
or  all  but  one  of  his  sons-in-law.  All 
of  which  was  not  conducive  to  the  peace 
and  repose  he  had  planned  for  his  old  age. 
He  hastened  his  efforts.  For  a  long 
time  he  had  been  in  correspondence  with 
the  chief  banks  in  Shangai  and  Macao. 
Every  steamer  for  several  years  had 
carried  away  drafts  drawn  in  favor  of 
one,  Chun  Ah  Chun,  for  deposit  in  those 
Far  Eastern  banks.  The  drafts  now 
became  heavier.  His  two  youngest 
daughters  were  not  yet  married.  He 
did  not  wait,  but  dowered  them  with 
a  hundred  thousand  each,  which  sums 
lay  in  the  Bank  of  Hawaii,  drawing 


i84  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

interest  and  awaiting  their  wedding  day. 
Albert  took  over  the  business  of  the  firm 
of  Ah  Chun  &  Ah  Yung,  Harold,  the 
eldest,  having  elected  to  take  a  quarter 
of  a  million  and  go  to  England  to  live. 
Charles,  the  youngest,  took  a  hundred 
thousand,  a  legal  guardian,  and  a  course 
in  a  Keeley  institute.  To  Mama  Achun 
was  given  the  bungalow,  the  mountain 
House  on  Tantalus,  and  a  new  seaside 
residence  in  place  of  the  one  Ah  Chun 
sold  to  the  government.  Also,  to  Mama 
Achun  was  given  half  a  million  in  money 
well  invested. 

Ah  Chun  was  now  ready  to  crack  the 
nut  of  the  problem.  One  fine  morning 
when  the  family  was  at  breakfast  —  he 
had  seen  to  it  that  all  his  sons-in-law  and 
their  wives  were  present  —  he  announced 
that  he  was  returning  to  his  ancestral 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  185 

soil.  In  a  neat  little  homily  he  explained 
that  he  had  made  ample  provision  for  his 
family,  and  he  laid  down  various  maxims 
that  he  was  sure,  he  said,  would  enable 
them  to  dwell  together  in  peace  and  har 
mony.  Also,  he  gave  business  advice  to 
his  sons-in-law,  preached  the  virtues  of 
temperate  living  and  safe  investments, 
and  gave  them  the  benefit  of  his  ency 
clopedic  knowledge  of  industrial  and  busi 
ness  conditions  in  Hawaii.  Then  he 
called  for  his  carriage,  and,  in  the  com 
pany  of  the  weeping  Mama  Achun,  was 
driven  down  to  the  Pacific  Mail  steamer, 
leaving  behind  him  a  panic  in  the  bunga 
low.  Captain  Higginson  clamored  wildly 
for  an  injunction.  The  daughters  shed 
copious  tears.  One  of  their  husbands, 
an  ex-Federal  judge,  questioned  Ah 
Chun's  sanity,  and  hastened  to  the  proper 


186  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

authorities  to  inquire  into  it.  He  re 
turned  with  the  information  that  Ah 
Chun  had  appeared  before  the  commis 
sion  the  day  before,  demanded  an  exami 
nation,  and  passed  with  flying  colors. 
There  was  nothing  to  be  done,  so  they 
went  down  and  said  good-by  to  the  little 
old  man,  who  waved  farewell  from  the 
promenade  deck  as  the  big  steamer  poked 
her  nose  seaward  through  the  coral  reef. 
But  the  little  old  man  was  not  bound 
for  Canton.  He  knew  his  own  country 
too  well,  and  the  squeeze  of  the  Man 
darins,  to  venture  into  it  with  the  tidy 
bulk  of  wealth  that  remained  to  him.  He 
went  to  Macao.  Now  Ah  Chun  had  long 
exercised  the  power  of  a  king  and  he  was 
as  imperious  as  a  king.  When  he  landed 
at  Macao  and  went  into  the  office  of  the 
biggest  European  hotel  to  register,  the 


CHUN  AH   CHUN  187 

clerk  closed  the  book  on  him.  Chinese 
were  not  permitted.  Ah  Chun  called 
for  the  manager  and  was  treated  with 
contumely.  He  drove  away,  but  in  two 
hours  he  was  back  again.  He  called  the 
clerk  and  manager  in,  gave  them  a 
month's  salary,  and  discharged  them. 
He  had  made  himself  the  owner  of  the 
hotel ;  and  in  the  finest  suite  he  settled 
down  during  the  many  months  the  gor 
geous  palace  in  the  suburbs  was  building 
for  him.  In  the  meantime,  with  the 
inevitable  ability  that  was  his,  he  in 
creased  the  earnings  of  his  big  hotel  from 
three  per  cent  to  thirty. 

The  troubles  Ah  Chun  had  flown  began 
early.  There  were  sons-in-law  that 
made  bad  investments,  others  that  played 
ducks  and  drakes  with  the  Achun  dowries. 
Ah  Chun  being  out  of  it,  they  looked  at 


188  CHUN  AH  CHUN 

Mama  Ah  Chun  and  her  half  million,  and, 
looking,  engendered  not  the  best  of  feeling 
toward  one  another.  Lawyers  waxed 
fat  in  the  striving  to  ascertain  the  con 
struction  of  trust  deeds.  Suits,  cross- 
suits,  and  counter-suits  cluttered  the 
Hawaiian  courts.  Nor  did  the  police 
courts  escape.  There  were  angry  en 
counters  in  which  harsh  words  and  harsher 
blows  were  struck.  There  were  such 
things  as  flower-pots  being  thrown  to  add 
emphasis  to  winged  words.  And  suits 
for  libel  arose  that  dragged  their  way 
through  the  courts  and  kept  Honolulu 
agog  with  excitement  over  the  revelations 
of  the  witnesses. 

In  his  palace,  surrounded  by  all  dear 
delights  of  the  Orient,  Ah  Chun  smokes 
his  placid  pipe  and  listens  to  the  turmoil 
overseas.  Each  mail  steamer,  in  faultless 


CHUN  AH  CHUN  189 

English,  typewritten  on  an  American 
machine,  a  letter  goes  from  Macao  to 
Honolulu,  in  which,  by  admirable  texts 
and  precepts,  Ah  Chun  advises  his  family 
to  live  in  unity  and  harmony.  As  for 
himself,  he  is  out  of  it  all  and  well  content. 
He  has  won  to  peace  and  repose.  At 
times  he  chuckles  and  rubs  his  hands, 
and  his  slant  little  black  eyes  twinkle 
merrily  at  the  thought  of  the  funny  world. 
For  out  of  all  his  living  and  philosophizing 
that  remains  to  him  —  the  conviction 
that  it  is  a  very  funny  world. 


VI 

THE   SHERIFF   OF    KONA 


THE   SHERIFF   OF   KONA 

"^C  T^OU  cannot  escape  liking  the 
climate,"  Cudworth  said,  in  reply 
to  my  panegyric  on  the  Kona 
coast.  "I  was  a  young  fellow,  just  out 
of  college,  when  I  came  here  eighteen 
years  ago.  I  never  went  back,  except,  of 
course,  to  visit.  And  I  warn  you,  if 
you  have  some  spot  dear  to  you  on  earth, 
not  to  linger  here  too  long,  else  you  will 
find  this  dearer." 

We  had  finished  dinner,  which  had  been 
served  on  the  big  lanai,  the  one  with  a 
northerly  exposure,  though  exposure  is 
indeed  a  misnomer  in  so  delectable  a 
climate. 

The  candles  had  been  put  out,  and  a 

slim,  white-clad  Japanese  slipped  like  a 
o  193 


i94     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

ghost  through  the  silvery  moonlight, 
presented  us  with  cigars,  and  faded  away 
into  the  darkness  of  the  bungalow.  I 
looked  through  a  screen  of  banana  and 
lehua  trees,  and  down  across  the  guava 
scrub  to  the  quiet  sea  a  thousand  feet 
beneath.  For  a  week,  ever  since  I  had 
landed  from  the  tiny  coasting-steamer, 
I  had  been  stopping  with  Cudworth,  and 
during  that  time  no  wind  had  ruffled  that 
unvexed  sea.  True,  there  had  been 
breezes,  but  they  were  the  gentlest 
zephyrs  that  ever  blew  through  summer 
isles.  They  were  not  winds ;  they  were 
sighs  —  long,  balmy  sighs  of  a  world  at 
rest. 

"A  lotus  land,"  I  said. 

"Where  each  day  is  like  every  day,  and 
every  day  is  a  paradise  of  days,"  he 
answered.  "Nothing  ever  happens.  It 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     195 

is  not  too  hot.  It  is  not  too  cold.  It 
is  always  just  right.  Have  you  noticed 
how  the  land  and  the  sea  breathe  turn 
and  turn  about  ?" 

Indeed  I  had  noticed  that  delicious, 
rhythmic,  breathing.  Each  morning  I 
had  watched  the  sea-breeze  begin  at 
the  shore  and  slowly  extend  seaward 
as  it  blew  the  mildest,  softest  whiff  of 
ozone  to  the  land.  It  played  over  the 
sea,  just  faintly  darkening  its  surface, 
with  here  and  there  and  everywhere 
long  lanes  of  calm,  shifting,  changing, 
drifting,  according  to  the  capricious  kisses 
of  the  breeze.  And  each  evening  I  had 
watched  the  sea  breath  die  away  to 
heavenly  calm,  and  heard  the  land  breath 
softly  make  its  way  through  the  coffee 
trees  and  monkey-pods. 

"It   is   a   land  of  perpetual   calm,"   I 


196     THE  SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

said.  "Does  it  ever  blow  here?  —  ever 
really  blow  ?  You  know  what  I  mean." 

Cudworth  shook  his  head  and  pointed 
eastward. 

"How  can  it  blow,  with  a  barrier  like 
that  to  stop  it  ?" 

Far  above  towered  the  huge  bulks  of 
^  Mauna  Kea  and  Mauna  Loa,  seeming 
to  blot  out  half  the  starry  sky.  Two 
miles  and  a  half  above  our  heads  they 
reared  their  own  heads,  white  with  snow 
that  the  tropic  sun  had  failed  to  melt. 

"Thirty  miles  away,  right  now,  I'll 
wager,  it  is  blowing  forty  miles  an  hour." 

I  smiled  incredulously. 

Cudworth  stepped  to  the  lanai  tele 
phone.  He  called  up,  in  succession, 
Waimea,  Kohala,  and  Hamakua. 
Snatches  of  his  conversation  told  me  that 
the  wind  was  blowing:  "Rip-snorting 


THE   SHERIFF  OF  KONA     197 

and  back-jumping,  eh  ?  ...  How  long  ? 
.  .  .  Only  a  week  ?  .  .  .  Hello,  Abe,  is 
that  you  ?  .  .  .  Yes,  yes.  .  .  .  You  will 
plant  coffee  on  the  Hamakua  coast.  .  .  . 
Hang  your  wind-breaks  !  You  should 
see  my  trees." 

"Blowing  a  gale,"  he  said  to  me,  turn 
ing  from  hanging  up  the  receiver.  "I 
always  have  to  joke  Abe  on  his  coffee. 
He  has  five  hundred  acres,  and  he's 
done  marvels  in  wind-breaking,  but  how 
he  keeps  the  roots  in  the  ground  is  be 
yond  me.  Blow  ?  It  always  blows  on  the 
Hamakua  side.  Kohala  reports  a 

schooner  under  double  reefs  beating  up 
the  channel  between  Hawaii  and  Maui, 
and  making  heavy  weather  of  it." 

"It  is  hard  to  realize,"  I  said  lamely. 
"Doesn't  a  little  whiff  of  it  ever  eddy 
around  somehow,  and  get  down  here?" 


198     THE   SHERIFF   OF   KONA 

"Not  a  whiff.  Our  land-breeze  is 
absolutely  of  no  kin,  for  it  begins  this 
side  of  Mauna  Kea  and  Mauna  Loa. 
You  see,  the  land  radiates  its  heat 
quicker  than  the  sea,  and  so,  at  night, 
the  land  breathes  over  the  sea.  In  the 
day  the  land  becomes  warmer  than  the 
sea,  and  the  sea  breathes  over  the  land. 
.  .  .  Listen  !  Here  comes  the  land- 
breath  now,  the  mountain  wind." 

I  could  hear  it  coming,  rustling  softly 
through  the  coffee  trees,  stirring  the 
monkey-pods,  and  sighing  through  the 
sugar-cane.  On  the  lanai  the  hush  still 
reigned.  Then  it  came,  the  first  feel 
of  the  mountain  wind,  faintly  balmy, 
fragrant  and  spicy,  and  cool,  deliciously 
cool,  a  silken  coolness,  a  wine-like  cool 
ness  —  cool  as  only  the  mountain  wind 
of  Kona  can  be  cool. 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     199 

"Do  you  wonder  that  I  lost  my  heart  to 
Kona  eighteen  years  ago  ?"  he  demanded. 
"I  could  never  leave  it  now.  I  think  I 
should  die.  It  would  be  terrible.  There 
was  another  man  who  loved  it,  even  as  I. 
I  think  he  loved  it  more,  for  he  was  born 
here  on  the  Kona  coast.  He  was  a  great 
man,  my  best  friend,  my  more  than  brother. 
But  he  left  it,  and  he  did  not  die." 

"Love?"     I    queried.     "A   woman?" 

Cudworth  shook  his  head. 

"Nor  will  he  ever  come  back,  though 
his  heart  will  be  here  until  he  dies." 

He  paused  and  gazed  down  upon  the 
beachlights  of  Kailua.  I  smoked  silently 
and  waited. 

"He  was  already  in  love  .  .  .  with 
his  wife.  Also,  he  had  three  children, 
and  he  loved  them.  They  are  in  Hono 
lulu  now.  The  boy  is  going  to  college." 


200     THE  SHERIFF  OF  KONA 

"Some  rash  act?"  I  questioned,  after 
a  time,  impatiently. 

He  shook  his  head.  "Neither  guilty 
of  anything  criminal,  nor  charged  with 
anything  criminal.  He  was  the  sheriff 
of  Kona." 

"You  choose  to  be  paradoxical,"  I 
said. 

"I  suppose  it  does  sound  that  way," 
he  admitted,  "and  that  is  the  perfect 
hell  of  it." 

He  looked  at  me  searchingly  for  a 
moment,  and  then  abruptly  took  up  the 
tale. 

"He  was  a  leper.  No,  he  was  not 
born  with  it  —  no  one  is  born  with  it ; 
it  came  upon  him.  This  man  —  what 
does  it  matter  ?  Lyte  Gregory  was  his 
name.  Every  kamaina  knows  the  story. 
He  was  straight  American  stock,  but  he 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     201 

was  built  like  the  chieftains  of  old  Ha 
waii.  He  stood  six  feet  three.  His 
stripped  weight  was  two  hundred  and 
twenty  pounds,  not  an  ounce  of  which 
was  not  clean  muscle  or  bone.  He  was 
the  strongest  man  I  have  ever  seen.  He 
was  an  athlete  and  a  giant.  He  was  a 
god.  He  was  my  friend.  And  his  heart 
and  his  soul  were  as  big  and  as  fine  as  his 
body. 

"I  wonder  what  you  would  do  if  you 
saw  your  friend,  your  brother,  on  the 
slippery  lip  of  a  precipice,  slipping,  slip 
ping,  and  you  were  able  to  do  nothing. 
That  was  just  it.  I  could  do  nothing. 
I  saw  it  coming,  and  I  could  do  nothing. 
My  God,  man  !  what  could  I  do  ?  There 
it  was,  malignant  and  incontestable,  the 
mark  of  the  thing  on  his  brow.  No  one 
else  saw  it.  It  was  because  I  loved  him 


202     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

so,  I  do  believe,  that  I  alone  saw  it.  I 
could  not  credit  the  testimony  of  my 
senses.  It  was  too  incredibly  horrible. 
Yet  there  it  was,  on  his  brow,  on  his  ears. 
I  had  seen  it,  the  slight  puff  of  the  ear- 
lobes  —  oh,  so  imperceptibly  slight.  I 
watched  it  for  months.  Then,  next, 
hoping  against  hope,  the  darkening  of 
the  skin  above  both  eyebrows  —  oh,  so 
faint,  just  like  the  dimmest  touch  of  sun 
burn.  I  should  have  thought  it  sun 
burn  but  that  there  was  a  shine  to  it, 
such  an  invisible  shine,  like  a  little  high 
light  seen  for  a  moment  and  gone  the 
next.  I  tried  to  believe  it  was  sunburn, 
only  I  could  not.  I  knew  better.  No 
one  noticed  it  but  me.  No  one  ever 
noticed  it  except  Stephen  Kaluna,  and 
I  did  not  know  that  till  afterward.  But 
I  saw  it  coming,  the  whole  damnable, 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     203 

unnamable  awfulness  of  it ;  but  I  re 
fused  to  think  about  the  future.  I  was 
afraid.  I  could  not.  And  of  nights  I 
cried  over  it. 

"He  was  my  friend.  We  fished  sharks 
on  Niihau  together.  We  hunted  wild 
cattle  on  Mauna  Kea  and  Mauna  Loa. 
We  broke  horses  and  branded  steers  on 
the  Carter  Ranch.  We  hunted  goats 
through  Haleakala.  He  taught  me  div 
ing  and  surfing  until  I  was  nearly  as 
clever  as  he,  and  he  was  cleverer  than  the 
average  Kanaka.  I  have  seen  him  dive 
in  fifteen  fathoms,  and  he  could  stay 
down  two  minutes.  He  was  an  am 
phibian  and  a  mountaineer.  He  could 
climb  wherever  a  goat  dared  climb.  He 
was  afraid  of  nothing.  He  was  on  the 
wrecked  Luga,  and  he  swam  thirty  miles 
in  thirty-six  hours  in  a  heavy  sea.  He 


204     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

could  fight  his  way  out  through  breaking 
combers  that  would  batter  you  and  me 
to  a  jelly.  He  was  a  great,  glorious 
man-god.  We  went  through  the  Revo 
lution  together.  We  were  both  roman 
tic  loyalists.  He  was  shot  twice  and 
sentenced  to  death.  But  he  was  too 
great  a  man  for  the  republicans  to  kill. 
He  laughed  at  them.  Later,  they  gave 
him  honor  and  made  him  sheriff  of  Kona. 
He  was  a  simple  man,  a  boy  that  never 
grew  up.  His  was  no  intricate  brain 
pattern.  He  had  no  twists  nor  quirks 
in  his  mental  processes.  He  went 
straight  to  the  point,  and  his  points  were 
always  simple. 

"And  he  was  sanguine.  Never  have  I 
known  so  confident  a  man,  nor  a  man  so 
satisfied  and  happy.  He  did  not  ask 
anything  from  life.  There  was  nothing 


THE  SHERIFF   OF   KONA     205 

left  to  be  desired.  For  him  life  had  no 
arrears.  He  had  been  paid  in  full,  cash 
down,  and  in  advance.  What  more 
could  he  possibly  desire  than  that  mag 
nificent  body,  that  iron  constitution, 
that  immunity  from  all  ordinary  ills,  and 
that  lowly  wholesomeness  of  soul  ?  Physi 
cally  he  was  perfect.  He  had  never 
been  sick  in  his  life.  He  did  not  know 
what  a  headache  was.  When  I  was  so 
afflicted  he  used  to  look  at  me  in  wonder, 
and  make  me  laugh  with  his  clumsy 
attempts  at  sympathy.  He  did  not  un 
derstand  such  a  thing  as  a  headache. 
He  could  not  understand.  Sanguine  ? 
No  wonder.  How  could  he  be  otherwise 
with  that  tremendous  vitality  and  in 
credible  health  ? 

"Just  to  show  you  what  faith  he  had 
in  his  glorious  star,  and,  also,  what  sane- 


206     THE  SHERIFF  OF  KONA 

tion  he  had  for  that  faith.  He  was  a 
youngster  at  the  time  —  I  had  just  met 
him  —  when  he  went  into  a  poker  game 
at  Wailuku.  There  was  a  big  German 
in  it,  Schultz  his  name  was,  and  he  played 
a  brutal,  domineering  game.  He  had 
had  a  run  of  luck  as  well,  and  he  was 
quite  insufferable,  when  Lyte  Gregory 
dropped  in  and  took  a  hand.  The  very 
first  hand  it  was  Schultz's  blind.  Lyte 
came  in,  as  well  as  the  others,  and  Schultz 
raised  them  out  —  all  except  Lyte.  He 
did  not  like  the  German's  tone,  and  he 
raised  him  back.  Schultz  raised  in  turn, 
and  in  turn  Lyte  raised  Schultz.  So 
they  went,  back  and  forth.  The  stakes 
were  big.  And  do  you  know  what  Lyte 
held  ?  A  pair  of  kings  and  three  little 
clubs.  It  wasn't  poker.  Lyte  wasn't 
playing  poker.  He  was  playing  his  op- 


THE  SHERIFF  OF  KONA     207 

timism.  He  didn't  know  what  Schultz 
held,  but  he  raised  and  raised  until  he 
made  Schultz  squeal,  and  Schultz  held 
three  aces  all  the  time.  Think  of  it ! 
A  man  with  a  pair  of  kings  compelling 
three  aces  to  see  before  the  draw  ! 

"Well,  Schultz  called  for  two  cards. 
Another  German  was  dealing,  Schultz's 
friend  at  that.  Lyte  knew  then  that  he 
was  up  against  three  of  a  kind.  Now 
what  did  he  do  ?  What  would  you  have 
done  ?  Drawn  three  cards  and  held  up 
the  kings,  of  course.  Not  Lyte,  He 
was  playing  optimism.  He  threw  the 
kings  away,  held  up  the  three  little  clubs, 
and  drew  two  cards.  He  never  looked 
at  them.  He  looked  across  at  Schultz 
to  bet,  and  Schultz  did  bet,  big.  Since 
he  himself  held  three  aces  he  knew  he  had 
Lyte,  because  he  played  Lyte  for  threes, 


208     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

and,  necessarily,  they  would  have  to 
be  smaller  threes.  Poor  Schultz !  He 
was  perfectly  correct  under  the  prem 
ises.  His  mistake  was  that  he  thought 
Lyte  was  playing  poker.  They  bet  back 
and  forth  for  five  minutes,  until  Schultz's 
certainty  began  to  ooze  out.  And  all 
the  time  Lyte  had  never  looked  at  his 
two  cards,  and  Schultz  knew  it.  I  could 
see  Schultz  think,  and  revive,  and  splurge 
with  his  bets  again.  But  the  strain  was 
too  much  for  him. 

"  c  Hold  on,  Gregory,'  he  said  at  last. 
'I've  got  you  beaten  from  the  start.  I 
don't  want  any  of  your  money.  I've 
got—' 

"  (  Never  mind  what  you've  got,'  Lyte 
interrupted.  'You  don't  know  what  I've 
gjpt.  I  guess  I'll  take  a  look.' 

"He  looked,  and  raised  the  German  a 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     209 

hundred  dollars.  Then  they  went  at  it 
again,  back  and  forth  and  back  and 
forth,  until  Schultz  weakened  and  called, 
and  laid  down  his  three  aces.  Lyte  faced 
his  five  cards.  They  were  all  black.  He 
had  drawn  two  more  clubs.  Do  you 
know,  he  just  about  broke  Schultz's 
nerve  as  a  poker  player.  He  never 
played  in  the  same  form  again.  He 
lacked  confidence  after  that,  and  was  a 
bit  wobbly. 

"  '  But  how  could  you  do  it  ?'  I  asked 
Lyte  afterward.  'You  knew  he  had  you 
beaten  when  he  drew  two  cards.  Be 
sides,  you  never  looked  at  your  own  draw.' 

"' 1  didn't  have  to  look,'  was  Lyte's 
answer.  'I  knew  they  were  two  clubs 
all  the  time.  They  just  had  to  be  two 
clubs.  Do  you  think  I  was  going  to  let 
that  big  Dutchman  beat  me  ?  It  was  im- 


210     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

possible  that  he  should  beat  me.  It  is 
not  my  way  to  be  beaten.  I  just  have  to 
win.  Why,  I'd  have  been  the  most 
surprised  man  in  this  world  if  they  hadn't 
been  all  clubs.' 

"  That  was  Lyte's  way,  and  maybe  it 
will  help  you  to  appreciate  his  colossal 
optimism.  As  he  put  it,  he  just  had  to 
succeed,  to  fare  well,  to  prosper.  And 
in  that  same  incident,  as  in  ten  thousand 
others,  he  found  his  sanction.  The  thing 
was  that  he  did  succeed,  did  prosper. 
That  was  why  he  was  afraid  of  nothing. 
Nothing  could  ever  happen  to  him.  He 
knew  it,  because  nothing  had  ever  hap 
pened  to  him.  That  time  the  Luga  was 
lost  and  he  swam  thirty  miles,  he  was  in 
the  water  two  whole  nights  and  a  day. 
And  during  all  that  terrible  stretch  of 
time  he  never  lost  hope  once,  never  once 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     211 

doubted  the  outcome.  He  just  knew  he 
was  going  to  make  the  land.  He  told 
me  so  himself,  and  I  know  it  was  the 
truth. 

"Well,  that  is  the  kind  of  a  man  Lyte 
Gregory  was.  He  was  of  a  different  race 
from  ordinary,  ailing  mortals.  He  was 
a  lordly  being,  untouched  by  common 
ills  and  misfortunes.  Whatever  he 
wanted  he  got.  He  won  his  wife  —  one 
of  the  Caruthers,  a  little  beauty  —  from 
a  dozen  rivals.  And  she  settled  down 
and  made  him  the  finest  wife  in  the  world. 
He  wanted  a  boy.  He  got  it.  He 
wanted  a  girl  and  another  boy.  He  got 
them.  And  they  were  just  right,  without 
spot  or  blemish,  with  chests  like  little 
barrels,  and  with  all  the  inheritance  of 
his  own  health  and  strength. 

"And   then   it   happened.     The   mark 


212     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

of  the  beast  was  laid  upon  him.  I 
watched  it  for  a  year.  It  broke  my 
heart.  But  he  did  not  know  it,  nor  did 
anybody  else  guess  it  except  that  cursed 
hapa-haole,  Stephen  Kaluna.  He  knew 
it,  but  I  did  not  know  that  he  did.  And 
—  yes  —  Doc  Strowbridge  knew  it.  He 
was  the  federal  physician,  and  he  had 
developed  the  leper  eye.  You  see,  part 
of  his  business  was  to  examine  suspects 
and  order  them  to  the  receiving  station 
at  Honolulu.  And  Stephen  Kaluna  had 
developed  the  leper  eye.  The  disease 
ran  strong  in  his  family,  and  four  or  five 
of  his  relatives  were  already  on  Molokai. 
"  The  trouble  arose  over  Stephen  Ka- 
luna's  sister.  When  she  became  suspect, 
and  before  Doc  Strowbridge  could  get 
hold  of  her,  her  brother  spirited  her 
away  to  some  hiding  place.  Lyte  was 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     213 

sheriff  of  Kona,  and  it  was  his  business  to 
find  her. 

"We  were  all  over  at  Hilo  that  night, 
in  Ned  Austin's.  Stephen  Kaluna  was 
there  when  we  came  in,  by  himself,  in 
his  cups,  and  quarrelsome.  Lyte  was 
laughing  over  some  joke  —  that  huge, 
happy  laugh  of  a  giant  boy.  Kaluna 
spat  contemptuously  on  the  floor.  Lyte 
noticed,  so  did  everybody ;  but  he  ig 
nored  the  fellow.  Kaluna  was  looking 
for  trouble.  He  took  it  as  a  personal 
grudge  that  Lyte  was  trying  to  appre 
hend  his  sister.  In  half  a  dozen  ways 
he  advertised  his  displeasure  at  Lyte's 
presence,  but  Lyte  ignored  him.  I  im 
agined  Lyte  was  a  bit  sorry  for  him,  for 
the  hardest  duty  of  his  office  was  the 
apprehension  of  lepers.  It  is  not  a  nice 
thing  to  go  into  a  man's  house  and  tear 


214     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

away  a  father,  mother,  or  child,  who  has 
done  no  wrong,  and  to  send  such  a  one 
to  perpetual  banishment  on  Molokai. 
Of  course,  it  is  necessary  as  a  protection 
to  society,  and  Lyte,  I  do  believe,  would 
have  been  the  first  to  apprehend  his  own 
father  did  he  become  suspect. 

"Finally,  Kaluna  blurted  out:  cLook 
here,  Gregory,  you  think  you're  going  to 
find  Kalaniweo,  but  you're  not.' 

"Kalaniweo  was  his  sister.  Lyte 
glanced  at  him  when  his  name  was  called, 
but  he  made  no  answer.  Kaluna  was 
furious.  He  was  working  himself  up 
all  the  time. 

"Til  tell  you  one  thing,'  he  shouted. 
'You'll  be  on  Molokai  yourself  before 
ever  you  get  Kalaniweo  there.  I'll  tell 
you  what  you  are.  You've  no  right  to 
be  in  the  company  of  honest  men. 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     215 

You've  made  a  terrible  fuss  talking  about 
your  duty,  haven't  you  ?  You've  sent 
many  lepers  to  Molokai,  and  knowing 
all  the  time  you  belonged  there  yourself.' 

"I'd  seen  Lyte  angry  more  than  once, 
but  never  quite  so  angry  as  at  that  mo 
ment.  Leprosy  with  us,  you  know,  is  not 
a  thing  to  jest  about.  He  made  one  leap 
across  the  floor,  dragging  Kaluna  out  of 
his  chair  with  a  clutch  on  his  neck.  He 
shook  him  back  and  fortH  savagely,  till  you 
could  hear  the  half-caste's  teeth  rattling. 

"  'What  do  you  mean  ?'  Lyte  was 
demanding.  'Spit  it  out,  man,  or  I'll 
choke  it  out  of  you  !' 

"You  know,  in  the  West  there  is  a 
certain  phrase  that  a  man  must  smile 
while  uttering.  So  with  us  of  the  islands, 
only  our  phrase  is  related  to  leprosy. 
No  matter  what  Kaluna  was,  he  was  no 


216     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

coward.  As  soon  as  Lyte  eased  the  grip 
on  his  throat  he  answered:  — 

"'I'll  tell  you  what  I  mean.  You  are 
a  leper  yourself.' 

"Lyte  suddenly  flung  the  half-caste 
sidewise  into  a  chair,  letting  him  down 
easily  enough.  Then  Lyte  broke  out 
into  honest,  hearty  laughter.  But  he 
laughed  alone,  and  when  he  discovered 
it  he  looked  around  at  our  faces.  I  had 
reached  his  side  and  was  trying  to  get 
him  to  come  away,  but  he  took  no  notice 
of  me.  He  was  gazing,  fascinated,  at 
Kaluna,  who  was  brushing  at  his  own 
throat  in  a  flurried,  nervous  way,  as  if 
to  brush  off  the  contamination  of  the 
fingers  that  had  clutched  him.  The 
action  was  unreasoned,  genuine. 

"Lyte  looked  around  at  us,  slowly 
passing  from  face  to  face. 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     217 

"'My  God,  fellows!  My  God!'  he 
said. 

"He  did  not  speak  it.  It  was  more  a 
hoarse  whisper  of  fright  and  horror.  It 
was  fear  that  fluttered  in  his  throat,  and 
I  don't  think  that  ever  in  his  life  before  he 
had  known  fear. 

"Then  his  colossal  optimism  asserted 
itself,  and  he  laughed  again. 

"  'A  good  joke  —  whoever  put  it  up,' 
he  said.  'The  drinks  are  on  me.  I  had 
a  scare  for  a  moment.  But,  fellows, 
don't  do  it  again,  to  anybody.  It's  too 
serious.  I  tell  you  I  died  a  thousand 
deaths  in  that  moment.  I  thought  of 
my  wife  and  the  kids,  and  .  .  . ' 

"His  voice  broke,  and  the  half-caste, 
still  throat-brushing,  drew  his  eyes.  He 
was  puzzled  and  worried. 

"'John,'  he  said,  turning  toward  me. 


218     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

"His  jovial,  rotund  voice  rang  in  my 
ears.  But  I  could  not  answer.  I  was 
swallowing  hard  at  that  moment,  and 
besides,  I  knew  my  face  didn't  look  just 
right. 

"'John,'  he  called  again,  taking  a  step 
nearer. 

"He  called  timidly,  and  of  all  night 
mares  of  horrors  the  most  frightful  was 
to  hear  timidity  in  Lyte  Gregory's  voice. 

"'John,  John,  what  does  it  mean  ?'  he 
went  on,  still  more  timidly.  'It's  a 
joke,  isn't  it  ?  John,  here's  my  hand.  If 
I  were  a  leper  would  I  offer  you  my  hand  ? 
Am  I  a  leper,  John  ?' 

"He  held  out  his  hand,  and  what  in 
high  heaven  or  hell  did  I  care  ?  He  was 
my  friend.  I  took  his  hand,  though  it 
cut  me  to  the  heart  to  see  the  way  his 
face  brightened. 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     219 

"'It  was  only  a  joke,  Lyte,'  I  said. 
6  We  fixed  it  up  on  you.  But  you're  right. 
It's  too  serious.  We  won't  do  it  again.' 

"He  did  not  laugh  this  time.  He 
smiled,  as  a  man  awakened  from  a  bad 
dream  and  still  oppressed  by  the  sub 
stance  of  the  dream. 

"'All  right,  then,'  he  said.  'Don't  do 
it  again,  and  I'll  stand  for  the  drinks. 
But  I  may  as  well  confess  that  you  fellows 
had  me  going  south  for  a  moment.  Look 
at  the  way  I've  been  sweating.' 

"He  sighed  and  wiped  the  sweat  from 
his  forehead  as  he  started  to  step  toward 
the  bar. 

"'It  is  no  joke,'  Kaluna  said  abruptly. 

"I  looked  murder  at  him,  and  I  felt 
murder,  too.  But  I  dared  not  speak  or 
strike.  That  would  have  precipitated 
the  catastrophe  which  I  somehow  had 
a  mad  hope  of  still  averting. 


220     THE  SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

"'It  is  no  joke,'  Kaluna  repeated. 
'You  are  a  leper,  Lyte  Gregory,  and 
you've  no  right  putting  your  hands  on 
honest  men's  flesh  —  on  the  clean  flesh  of 
honest  men.' 

"Then  Gregory  flared  up. 

"'The  joke  has  gone  far  enough! 
Quit  it !  Quit  it,  I  say,  Kaluna,  or  I'll 
give  you  a  beating  ! ' 

"'You  undergo  a  bacteriological  ex 
amination,'  Kaluna  answered,  'and  then 
you  can  beat  me  —  to  death,  if  you  want 
to.  Why,  man,  look  at  yourself  there 
in  the  glass.  You  can  see  it.  Anybody 
can  see  it.  You're  developing  the  lion 
face.  See  where  the  skin  is  darkened 
there  over  your  eyes.' 

"Lyte  peered  and  peered,  and  I  saw  his 
hands  trembling. 

"'I  can  see  nothing,'  he  said  finally, 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     221 

then  turned  on  the  hapa-haole.  'You 
have  a  black  heart,  Kaluna.  And  I  am 
not  ashamed  to  say  that  you  have  given 
me  a  scare  that  no  man  has  a  right  to 
give  another.  I  take  you  at  your  word. 
I  am  going  to  settle  this  thing  now.  I 
am  going  straight  to  Doc  Strowbridge. 
And  when  I  come  back,  watch  out.' 

"He  never  looked  at  us,  but  started 
for  the  door. 

"'You  wait  here,  John,'  he  said,  waving 
me  back  from  accompanying  him. 

"We  stood  around  like  a  group  of 
ghosts. 

"'It  is  the  truth,'  Kaluna  said.  'You 
could  see  it  for  yourselves.' 

"They  looked  at  me,  and  I  nodded. 
Harry  Burnley  lifted  his  glass  to  his  lips, 
but  lowered  it  untasted.  He  spilled  half 
of  it  over  the  bar.  His  lips  were  trem- 


222     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

bling  like  a  child  that  is  about  to  cry.  Ned 
Austin  made  a  clatter  in  the  ice-chest. 
He  wasn't  looking  for  anything.  I  don't 
think  he  knew  what  he  was  doing.  No 
body  spoke.  Harry  Burnley's  lips  were 
trembling  harder  than  ever.  Suddenly, 
with  a  most  horrible,  malignant  expression 
he  drove  his  fist  into  Kaluna's  face.  He 
followed  it  up.  We  made  no  attempt  to 
separate  them.  We  didn't  care  if  he 
killed  the  half-caste.  It  was  a  terrible 
beating.  We  weren't  interested.  I  don't 
even  remember  when  Burnley  ceased  and 
let  the  poor  devil  crawl  away.  We  were 
all  too  dazed. 

"Doc  Strowbridge  told  me  about  it 
afterward.  He  was  working  late  over 
a  report  when  Lyte  came  into  his  office. 
Lyte  had  already  recovered  his  optimism, 
and  came  swinging  in,  a  trifle  angry 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     223 

with  Kaluna  to  be  sure,  but  very  certain 
of  himself.  'What  could  I  do?'  Doc 
asked  me.  'I  knew  he  had  it.  I  had 
seen  it  coming  on  for  months.  I  couldn't 
answer  him.  I  couldn't  say  yes.  I  don't 
mind  telling  you  I  broke  down  and 
cried.  He  pleaded  for  the  bacteriological 
test.  "Snip  out  a  piece,  Doc,"  he  said, 
over  and  over.  "Snip  out  a  piece  of 
skin  and  make  the  test." 

"  The  way  Doc  Strowbridge  cried  must 
have  convinced  Lyte.  The  Claudine  was 
leaving  next  morning  for  Honolulu.  We 
caught  him  when  he  was  going  aboard. 
You  see,  he  was  headed  for  Honolulu 
to  give  himself  up  to  the  Board  of  Health. 
We  could  do  nothing  with  him.  He  had 
sent  too  many  to  Molokai  to  hang  back 
himself.  We  argued  for  Japan.  But  he 
wouldn't  hear  of  it.  '  I've  got  to  take  my 


224    THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

medicine,  fellows,'  was  all  he  would  say, 
and  he  said  it  over  and  over.  He  was 
obsessed  with  the  idea. 

"He  wound  up  all  his  affairs  from  the 
Receiving  Station  at  Honolulu,  and  went 
down  to  Molokai.  He  didn't  get  on  well 
there.  The  resident  physician  wrote  us 
that  he  was  a  shadow  of  his  old  self. 
You  see  he  was  grieving  about  his  wife  and 
the  kids.  He  knew  we  were  taking  care 
of  them,  but  it  hurt  him  just  the  same. 
After  six  months  or  so  I  went  down  to 
Molokai.  I  sat  on  one  side  a  plate-glass 
window,  and  he  on  the  other.  We  looked 
at  each  other  through  the  glass,  and  talked 
through  what  might  be  called  a  speaking 
tube.  But  it  was  hopeless.  He  had  made 
up  his  mind  to  remain.  Four  mortal  hours 
I  argued.  I  was  exhausted  at  the  end. 
My  steamer  was  whistling  for  me,  too. 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     225 

"But  we  couldn't  stand  for  it.  Three 
months  later  we  chartered  the  schooner 
Halcyon.  She  was  an  opium  smuggler, 
and  she  sailed  like  a  witch.  Her  master 
was  a  squarehead  who  would  do  any 
thing  for  money,  and  we  made  a  charter 
to  China  worth  his  while.  He  sailed  from 
San  Francisco,  and  a  few  days  later  we 
took  out  Landhouse's  sloop  for  a  cruise. 
She  was  only  a  five-ton  yacht,  but  we 
slammed  her  fifty  miles  to  windward  into 
the  northeast  trade.  Seasick  ?  I  never 
suffered  so  in  my  life.  Out  of  sight 
of  land  we  picked  up  the  Halcyon,  and 
Burnley  and  I  went  aboard. 

"We  ran  down  to  Molokai,  arriving 
about  eleven  at  night.  The  schooner 
hove  to  and  we  landed  through  the  surf 
in  a  whale-boat  at  Kalawao  —  the  place, 
you  know,  where  Father  Damien  died. 

Q 


226     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

That  squarehead  was  game.  With  a 
couple  of  revolvers  strapped  on  him  he 
came  right  along.  The  three  of  us  crossed 
the  peninsula  to  Kalaupapa,  something 
like  two  miles.  Just  imagine  hunting  in 
the  dead  of  night  for  a  man  in  a  settlement 
of  over  a  thousand  lepers.  You  see,  if 
the  alarm  was  given,  it  was  all  off  with  us. 
It  was  strange  ground,  and  pitch  dark. 
The  lepers'  dogs  came  out  and  bayed 
at  us,  and  we  stumbled  around  till  we 
got  lost. 

"The  squarehead  solved  it.  He  led 
the  way  into  the  first  detached  house. 
We  shut  the  door  after  us  and  struck  a 
light.  There  were  six  lepers.  We  routed 
them  up,  and  I  talked  in  native.  What 
I  wanted  was  a  kokua.  A  kokua  is, 
literally,  a  helper,  a  native  who  is  clean 
that  lives  in  the  settlement  and  is  paid 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     227 

by  the  Board  of  Health  to  nurse  the  lepers, 
dress  their  sores,  and  such  things.  We 
stayed  in  the  house  to  keep  track  of  the 
inmates,  while  the  square  head  led  one  of 
them  off  to  find  a  kokua.  He  got  him,  and 
he  brought  him  along  at  the  point  of 
his  revolver.  But  the  kokua  was  all 
right.  While  the  squarehead  guarded 
the  house,  Burnley  and  I  were  guided  by 
the  kokua  to  Lyte's  house.  He  was  all 
alone. 

"'I  thought  you  fellows  would  come,' 
Lyte  said.  'Don't  touch  me,  John. 
How's  Ned,  and  Charley,  and  all  the 
crowd  ?  Never  mind,  tell  me  afterward. 
I  am  ready  to  go  now.  I've  had  nine 
months  of  it.  Where's  the  boat  ?' 

"We  started  back  for  the  other  house  to 
pick  up  the  squarehead.  But  the  alarm 
had  got  out.  Lights  were  showing  in 


228     THE  SHERIFF  OF  KONA 

the  houses,  and  doors  were  slamming. 
We  had  agreed  that  there  was  to  be  no 
shooting  unless  absolutely  necessary,  and 
when  we  were  halted  we  went  at  it  with 
our  fists  and  the  butts  of  our  revolvers. 
I  found  myself  tangled  up  with  a  big  man. 
I  couldn't  keep  him  off  of  me,  though  twice 
I  smashed  him  fairly  in  the  face  with  my 
fist.  He  grappled  with  me,  and  we  went 
down,  rolling  and  scrambling  and  strug 
gling  for  grips.  He  was  getting  away 
with  me,  when  some  one  came  running 
up  with  a  lantern.  Then  I  saw  his  face. 
How  shall  I  describe  the  horror  of  it ! 
It  was  not  a  face  —  only  wasted  or  wast 
ing  features  —  a  living  ravage,  noseless, 
lipless,  with  one  ear  swollen  and  distorted, 
hanging  down  to  the  shoulder.  I  was 
frantic.  In  a  clinch  he  hugged  me  close 
to  him  until  that  ear  flapped  in  my  face. 


THE  SHERIFF  OF  KONA     229 

Then  I  guess  I  went  insane.  It  was  too 
terrible.  I  began  striking  him  with  my 
revolver.  How  it  happened  I  don't  know, 
but  just  as  I  was  getting  clear  he  fastened 
upon  me  with  his  teeth.  The  whole  side 
of  my  hand  was  in  that  lipless  mouth. 
Then  I  struck  him  with  the  revolver  butt 
squarely  between  the  eyes,  and  his  teeth 
relaxed." 

Cudworth  held  his  hand  to  me  in  the 
moonlight,  and  I  could  see  the  scars.  It 
looked  as  if  it  had  been  mangled  by  a  dog. 

"  Weren't  you  afraid  ?"     I  asked. 

"I  was.  Seven  years  I  waited.  You 
know,  it  takes  that  long  for  the  disease 
to  incubate.  Here  in  Kona  I  waited, 
and  it  did  not  come.  But  there  was 
never  a  day  of  those  seven  years,  and 
never  a  night,  that  I  did  not  look  out  on 
.  on  all  this.  ."  His  voice  broke 


230     THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA 

as  he  swept  his  eyes  from  the  moon-bathed 
sea  beneath  to  the  snowy  summits  above. 
"I  could  not  bear  to  think  of  losing  it, 
of  never  again  beholding  Kona.  Seven 
years  !  I  stayed  clean.  But  that  is 
why  I  am  single.  I  was  engaged.  I 
could  not  dare  to  marry  while  I  was  in 
doubt.  She  did  not  understand.  She 
went  away  to  the  States,  and  married.  I 
have  never  seen  her  since. 

"Just  at  the  moment  I  got  free  of  the 
leper  policeman  there  was  rush  and  clatter 
of  hoofs  like  a  cavalry  charge.  It  was 
the  squarehead.  He  had  been  afraid 
of  a  rumpus  and  he  had  improved  his 
time  by  making  those  blessed  lepers  he 
was  guarding  saddle  up  four  horses.  We 
were  ready  for  him.  Lyte  had  accounted 
for  three  kokuas,  and  between  us  we 
untangled  Burnley  from  a  couple  more. 


THE   SHERIFF  OF   KONA     231 

The  whole  settlement  was  in  an  uproar  by 
that  time,  and  as  we  dashed  away  some 
body  opened  up  on  us  with  a  Winchester. 
It  must  have  been  Jack  McVeigh,  the 
superintendent  of  Molokai. 

"That  was  a  ride  !  Leper  horses,  leper 
saddles,  leper  bridles,  pitch-black  dark 
ness,  whistling  bullets,  and  a  road  none  of 
the  best.  And  the  squarehead's  horse 
was  a  mule,  and  he  didn't  know  how  to 
ride,  either.  But  we  made  the  whale- 
boat,  and  as  we  shoved  off  through  the 
surf  we  could  hear  the  horses  coming 
down  the  hill  from  Kalaupapa. 

"You're  going  to  Shanghai.  You  look 
Lyte  Gregory  up.  He  is  employed  in  a 
German  firm  there.  Take  him  out  to 
dinner.  Open  up  wine.  Give  him  every 
thing  of  the  best,  but  don't  let  him 
pay  for  anything.  Send  the  bill  to  me. 


232     THE   SHERIFF  OF  KONA 

His  wife  and  the  kids  are  in  Honolulu, 
and  he  needs  the  money  for  them.  I 
know.  He  sends  most  of  his  salary,  and 
lives  like  an  anchorite.  And  tell  him 
about  Kona.  There's  where  his  heart  is. 
Tell  him  all  you  can  about  Kona." 


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eye  as  much  as  to  the  inner  mentality,  and  that  the  events  are 
actually  happening  before  the  reader." —  The  New  York 
Herald. 

CHILDREN  OF  THE  FROST 

"Told  with  something  of  that  same  vigorous  and  honest 
manliness  and  indifference  with  which  Mr.  Kipling  makes 
unbegging  yet  direct  and  unfailing  appeal  to  the  sympathy  of 
his  reader."  —  Richmond  Despatch. 

THE  FAITH  OF  MEN 

"  Mr.  London's  art  as  a  story-teller  nowhere  manifests  itself 
more  strongly  than  in  the  swift,  dramatic  close  of  his  stories. 
There  is  no  hesitancy  or  uncertainty  of  touch.  From  the 
start  the  story  moves  straight  to  the  inevitable  conclusion." 

—  Courier  Journal. 

MOON  FACE 

"  Each  of  the  stories  is  unique  in  its  individual  way,  weird  and 
uncanny,  and  told  in  Mr.  London's  vigorous,  compelling  style." 

—  Interior. 

TALES  OF  THE  FISH  PATROL 

"That  they  are  vividly  told,  hardly  need  be  said,  for  Jack 
London  is  a  realist  as  well  as  a  writer  of  thrilling  romances." 

—  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer. 

LOVE  OF  LIFE 

"  Jack  London  is  at  his  best  with  the  short  story  .  .  .  clear- 
cut,  sharp,  incisive,  with  the  tang  of  the  frost  in  it."  —  Record- 
Chicago. 


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Mr.  Robert  Herrick's  Novels 

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"Distinctly  unusual  —  and  distinctly  interesting." — Chicago  Inter- 
Ocean. 

"Of  extraordinary  vividness  —  a  book  of  power." — Chicago  Tri 
bune. 

TO GETHER  Cloth,  gilt  top,  each,  $1.50 

"  Scarce  a  page  but  is  tense  and  strong."  —  Record-Herald. 
"  A  masterpiece  of  keen  vision  and  vivid  depiction."  —  Mail. 
"  An  absorbing  story  .  .  .  likely  to  make  a  sensation."  —  New  York 
Evening  Post. 

"A  book  of  the  first  magnitude,,  that  handles  a  momentous  theme 
boldly,  wisely,  sympathetically,  and  with  insight."  —  The  Forum. 

A  LIFE  FOR  A  LIFE 

"  A  serious  attempt  to  treat  a  big  living  question  in  a  new  way."  — 
Record-Herald. 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  FREEDOM 

"  A  novel  that  may  be  truly  called  the  greatest  study  of  social  life  that 
has  ever  been  contributed  to  American  fiction."  —  Chicago  Inter- 
Ocean. 

THE  WEB  OF  LIFE 

"  It  is  strong  in  that  it  faithfully  depicts  many  phases  of  Ameiican 
life,  and  uses  them  to  strengthen  a  web  of  fiction,  which  is  most 
artistically  wrought  out."  —  Buffalo  Express. 

THE  COMMON  LOT 

Is  a  strong,  virile  picture  of  modern   business  life,  with  all  its 

temptations  to  "  graft "  and  its  fight  for  privilege. 

'•'  A  novel  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  overpraise."  —  Philadelphia 

Ledger. 

"  It  is  by  long  odds  the  greatest  novel  of  the  autumn."  —  The  New 

York  American. 

THE  REAL  WORLD 

"  Unusually  satisfying.  .  .  .  The  hero  steadily  approaches  the  di 
viding  line  between  safety  and  ruin  and  you  are  kept  in  agitated 
suspense  until  the  dramatic  climax.  A  number  of  powerful  scenes 
add  color  and  forcefulness  to  a  story  in  the  main  eminently  satis 
factory."  —  Record-Herald,  Chicago. 


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THE  MAN  IN  THE  SHADOW 

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Some  of  the  incidents  described  are  full  of  the  well-turned  humor 
for  which  Mr.  Child  is  so  well  known  ;  others  where  life  is  looked  at 
seriously,  are  grave,  but  all  are  human  to  the  core. 

JOHN  TEMPLE  :   MERCHANT  ADVENTURER,  CONVICT  AND 

CONQUISTADOR 
By  RALPH  DURAND.    Illustrated  by  WILLIAM  SEWELL. 

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Every  schoolboy  has  heard  tales  as  true  as  they  are  wonderful  of  the 
Spanish  conquest  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  but  comparatively  few  boys 
or  men  —  in  the  absence  of  a  Prescott  —  know  that  a  tale  almost  as 
wonderful  and  romantic,  and  every  bit  as  true,  might  be  written  of 
the  unsuccessful  attempt  made  by  Francisco  Barreto  to  establish  a 
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traditions  of  this  period,  still  extant  in  the  Zambesi  Valley,  and  from 
the  historical  records,  Mr.  Durand  has  here  tried  to  rescue  this  story 
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to  every  one  who  thinks  at  all,  yet  so  comprehensive  that  it  removes 
many  of  the  difficulties  the  average  person  has  in  trying  to  conceive 
what  life  really  is. 

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The  varied  experiences  of  a  travelling  band  of  singers  and  dancers 
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theme  of  this  colorful  story. 


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